


Healer

by caleon



Series: Blades of Narnia [5]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia
Genre: Adventure, Blades of Narnia, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-22
Updated: 2010-05-22
Packaged: 2017-10-18 22:05:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 38
Words: 55,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/193805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caleon/pseuds/caleon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amid the turmoil of war, Lucy Pevensie sets out to recover a brother whose faith is broken before it’s too late for Narnia. Blades of Narnia, Book Five</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Winter Ship

**Author's Note:**

> _A/N: And here we come to the last Pevensie in the_ Blades of Narnia _series. Lucy has always been the unwavering faith of her family, the one whose belief in Aslan and in the solidarity of her siblings has never been shaken. So it was only natural to give her the mission to reclaim Edmund from the fate to which his path must surely lead him..._

Faun Tumnus was old, with a white beard now falling to his waist and eyes that didn't see so sharply anymore. But his hearing was fine, and he rather wished it weren't.

He'd wandered the wrong way through the castle, aimed for Cair Paravel's kitchens but somehow ending up here in the armory. The noise, which had driven him behind a large chest in befuddled embarrassment, turned out to be a trio of centaurs entering the room. He recognized Oreius even before squinting. Bother, he'd forgotten his spectacles somewhere.

King Peter's general had gone slate-grey with age, but his air of command was unchanged. Beside him came a big red centaur, roaning out-Nalis-and a younger copy of Nalis that could only be his eldest, Darius.

"I came as a courtesy to you," Nalis said. "My son and I will take the first ship out."

"You will not," said Oreius. "Your post is here."

"It has been over a year. For all we know, King Edmund is still in Selbaran, unprotected!"

"He has chosen his business, and you must mind yours," Oreius said. The _clack_ of his hoof against the stone floor sounded through the room.

"I go where I am needed." The red centaur's tail lashed his flanks.

Oreius leaped forward until they stood face to face, and squared up to his full, still-impressive height. Even losing his sight, Tumnus noticed the air of tension in the great centaur's body. "We are Narnia's First Guard," Oreius said, "and I need not remind you there's a war on. You are _ordered_ to remain with the King."

Nalis turned toward the door. After an uncertain glance at Oreius, Darius turned with him. Nalis looked back over his shoulder. "And to the king I go." He trotted to the door with his son beside him, passing close beside the trunk where Tumnus hid.

"Treason!" Oreius shouted, but neither Nalis nor his son looked back.

\- # -

"Madness," Tumnus protested. "Utter madness to take a ship anywhere this time of year. Any time of year! It's always winter. Again! And with Calormene corsairs running amok in the Eastern Ocean! Oh, I should not have told you."

"Tumnus, my dear friend, you know I cannot continue to sit here and do nothing." Lucy Pevensie continued packing her rucksack. "And so you know, I am glad you told me. We must find Edmund before Narnia falls to pieces, and if Nalis believes he is still in Selbaran with Asha, then that's where I shall go."

"What about Cair Paravel? King Peter has gone away to the North this very morning. Queen Corisande makes sorties daily into the countryside. Who is to guard our home ground?"

"Susan and Saris are more than capable." Lucy stalled Tumnus's protest with a raised hand. "Griffin Arrow will accompany me, too. Please don't fear for me. Between he, Nalis, and Darius, I'll be well-protected."

"Not on the high seas, you won't." Tumnus clattered across the floor, adjusting his spectacles. "Queen Lucy, please see reason. You could be killed-or worse, taken by pirates! You've heard the tales. Ships appearing out of the darkness, overtaking legitimate vessels. Disappearing again. No word, no demand for bounty, nothing left behind to help families mourn their lost ones!"

"If Aslan wills that, it will be so, and neither you nor I will gainsay it," said Lucy. She turned around to find tears in the old faun's eyes. This, more than anything, caused her a pang of dismay. She took his hands in hers and gave them a gentle squeeze. "Tumnus, you know me best of anyone. Can you see me staying home and waiting for the outcome of this war, knowing one brother is fighting for our country, and the other is missing? Only when the Four Thrones are filled, can Narnia be sure of peace. I have to believe I can bring Edmund home."

"No one has seen him in a year. Not even Asha." Tumnus's voice shook, and his eyes pleaded with her.

"She would know if my brother were ..." Lucy choked on the word, couldn't say it. "She would know. I go, Tumnus. I feel Aslan wants me to do this."

Tumnus lowered his voice, and lowered his eyes. "No one's seen Aslan, either, Lucy."

Anger stirred in her belly. "Was it not you who told me never to press him? We owe it to him to hold Narnia together, whether or not he is here to see us do it." Mellowing again (for she could never stay angry, most especially at Tumnus), she kissed his cheek. "Look after Susan and Saris. I'll send word as soon as I can."

An hour later, after a tearful goodbye from Susan and a sober but concerned one from Saris, Lucy boarded the frigate _Luna Alba_ , a ship whose armament balanced neatly with her speed. They would need both to find Edmund. While the ship had a crew to concern themselves with her sailing, Lucy always liked to go over a ship before she sailed and acquaint herself with it. The quartermaster, a gruff faun with a grizzled red beard, took her over the vessel, explaining its features. Lucy nodded with satisfaction at every point.

Then they were off. As the ship pulled out of the harbor, Lucy fancied she could see Susan's silhouette on one of the castle parapets. She pulled her heavy cloak closer around her shoulders. The chill winter wind would be worse on the open sea. She wished it might blow them to Selbaran all the faster, but this wind followed no orders, for it came from the White Witch's power.

No one had seen Jadis since the Battle of Beruna so many years ago, but this unending winter could mean only one thing: that she had returned, and her power grew daily. Searches for her followers had come to almost nothing. Peter and Cori's forays to defend Narnia's borders were met with skirmishes, but they found no sign of Jadis, nor of the Nazi officer who had entered Narnia last year to uphold the Witch's cause.

No sign, either, of the Witch's wand, which had disappeared the day Edmund left Narnia. Lucy reached into a pouch at her belt and unfolded a much-creased letter that had arrived three months after he had gone. The lion's-head seal had been tampered with before she received it, evidence that it had been intercepted and read, but it had arrived to her nonetheless.

 _Lucy,_

 _Asha's health holds, though unsteadily, as I search for balms to her illness. She is angry with me, as I am sure you all are, for my leaving so precipitately. I will not ask your forgiveness, for what's done is done._

 _Edmund_

That was it. Nothing else, no indication of the wand or of his probable return. Completely unlike him, and yet Lucy found it hard to blame him, who must still be reeling from the death of his infant daughter. Susan, Saris, Peter, and even Cori had more trouble forgiving him for abandoning Narnia in her time of need, but they were too much occupied with defending Narnia to dwell on Edmund. Only Lucy had thought it necessary to find him. Each day brought growing danger and invasions that punched ever closer to Cair Paravel and the heart of Narnia. Lucy felt sure that only this course could put Narnia back to rights.

She looked up to the fast-receding silhouette of Cair Paravel. _I will come home soon, Susan. I hope._


	2. Sea Tales

For a wartime ship, the _Luna_ was surprisingly merry. There was music and dancing in the evening, when the sea was calm enough to permit. Lucy felt the crew must be trying extra hard to make her travel as enjoyable as possible, and she loved them for it. As the only female on board, she wore her feet out playing partner to each of the dancers. Only when Nalis intervened with his stern countenance did she find rest.

"You must go easy, my Queen," he said one evening as they stood at the starboard rail, looking on a weak sunset. "You may need your rest and strength more than you know, by the time our journey is over."

"If my exuberance can help these sailors find some happiness in wartime, then a sore foot is the least of my concerns," she said, but she surreptitiously removed said foot from its slipper to soothe it with a rub against her opposite ankle. Thank Aslan for long skirts.

The smoky-sweet scent of tobacco drifted toward her on the breeze. Presently, a large shadow passed over the rail.

Lucy turned to find Arrow stalking toward them. The griffin's wings were partly extended to help him balance against the ship's rocking. "Creatures of air were not meant for water," he grumped. His golden eyes narrowed to slits. "Neither were they meant to suffer the smell of burning plants as a form of enjoyment."

"I am glad you came," Lucy said. "I'm sorry you had to sacrifice some of your comforts to do it."

The griffin ruffled his feathers, looking mollified. "All in the name of Narnia, you know."

"Come!" called a voice. "Kamus is telling stories!"

Lucy turned to find a satyr waving them toward an old faun just settling himself on a cask on the main deck. She grinned at Nalis.

The old centaur nodded, then gestured to Arrow and Darius, who was approaching the main deck. "Go, Your Majesty. I must write letters."

Lucy joined the half-circle of sailors now arranging themselves around Kamus. "Tell the one about _The Mermaid and the Satyr_!" cried a young satyr.

"No, no. The tale of _The Hedgehog's Quest_!" said a hedgehog.

"What about _The Wise Leopard_?" asked a leopard.

"No," said Kamus, shifting on the cask to a more comfortable position. He puffed on his pipe for a moment, then nodded to Lucy as she sat on a crate. Watching her, he added, "I shall tell you of _The Phoenix_."

Silence rippled across the deck until only the wind and sea could be heard. Lucy felt a shiver and looked at the gathered crew. Their faces had grown suddenly grim. Some looked scared.

"That'll bring her on top of us," protested a pot-bellied old bear.

"Pish," said Kamus. "You ever seen her?"

The bear shook his head.

"I have," said Kamus.

A collective gasp erupted from the crew. Big-eyed, the bear took a step back from Kamus. "And-And you lived?"

"Sailors. Superstitious lot, you," said Kamus. He crossed his leg and rested his elbow on his knee. Pointing at the bear with his pipe, he added, "Mark me. A story won't bring _The Phoenix_. She comes and goes as she pleases, story or no story. You listen to what's known of her, from the only one ever to see her and escape. Might find the knowledge useful."

As reasonably as Kamus spoke, Lucy couldn't help a shiver. The crew's reaction would have been enough to unsettle her, but something in the old faun's voice provoked a chill of awe and fear that only her years of bravery in battle could have withstood. "Who is she?" Lucy asked.

"She's a ship, Your Majesty. Half again as big as the _Luna_ , and twice as fast. I would not have believed her size, but I saw her. You've heard tell of pirates making off with Narnian vessels and all aboard them? _The Phoenix_ is the most-feared of them all. In a flash of lightning, she's there, and just as sudden gone. I've seen her once, and hope never to have a second chance."

"Does she really smoke as she sails? Burning rigging and all?" squeaked a rabbit.

Kamus glared at the rabbit. "She sails as any normal ship might, with sails of cloth. Square-rigged she is, a brigantine, with as clean a line as ever you'd hope to see. If you ever see it. She runs at night, in storms, with no colors." He puffed on his pipe. "And the wind, this infernal wind, obeys her."

"A ship of the Witch?" gasped the rabbit.

"Shh!" cried a satyr beside the rabbit. The satyr glanced fearfully around, as if he thought referring to Jadis might bring the Witch here. Even Lucy sought the reassuring feel of the dagger strapped to her cordial case.

"She caught us out on the open sea as we made for Calormen," said Kamus. "A storm, as I said. Fast and furious she was, a demon of the water, flying at us full sail against the wind like it were nothing. She fired one warning shot only. The sea itself rose up against us, pushing us toward _The Phoenix_. We looked to be overtaken, but the crew panicked at sight of her. I fell overboard as _The Phoenix_ captured us. Merfolk found me drifting after the storm and took me to an island where I could make my way home to Narnia. The others ... all lost, or vanished." Kamus's gaze found Lucy's, and he bowed his head. "It's that reason I agreed to come aboard with you, Your Majesty. If my knowledge may serve you, you're welcome to it."

Lucy nodded back, still disturbed by the image of a demon ship rising from the water. She cast an anxious glance at the eastern horizon. Selbaran was still weeks away. How could they expect to outrun a phantom to which the very wind would bow?


	3. Calm And Storm

Another week into the voyage, the strange wintry winds stopped completely. The _Luna_ 's crew found themselves stranded in the ocean with no breeze, no wave, not a breath of motion to carry them on. "It's as if the Witch's hold on the weather stops here, in this very spot," Lucy murmured to Arrow. She walked amidships with him, her hands stretched out in wonder toward the bow and stern. One felt cold-the one she held west-while she could almost imagine that the hand she stretched east felt the warmth of what should have been spring.

Perhaps, she thought with a thrill of hope (and not a little wistfulness), it echoed the feel of Aslan's Country to the utter east.

"You look like you're about to fly off, my lady. It's best there's no wind to catch you," said Arrow with amusement.

"Oh, don't make fun," she protested, but she lowered her hands anyway. "If I could, I would. I'd carry us to Selbaran, find Edmund, bring him home, and have my family together again. And we'd stop these invaders and the Witch, and Narnia would be whole." She laid a hand on the griffin's feathery ruff, and Arrow didn't object. "I miss the Narnian spring. Many of the naiads and dryads have gone to sleep under all that snow." She sighed and turned her face to the weak sun. "I wonder if the dryads of Selbaran are doing well. I wonder if Asha ..." Lucy stopped, frowning, unable to think on the heartbreak her sister-in-law must be enduring. If Edmund had truly disappeared, Asha must feel sundered in two.

A pair of satyrs passed them, nodding respectfully as they went about their work. Lucy nodded back, automatic, thinking of loved ones far away.

"Shall I tell you a story of my people's trials that long winter?" Arrow asked. "Shall I tell you how we came to believe Aslan was coming to end the Witch's power at last?"

Lucy smiled again, drawn out of her gloom. Arrow pretended gruffness, but the griffin bore as kind a heart as his eyes were perceptive. "Yes, please."

The griffin regaled her with a tale that had passed into the histories of his race, of one of his kind who had rejected the solitude of the mountains to ally himself with the free people of Narnia. Rook believed an end could be found to the Witch's cruel reign. His bravery inspired all the clan to remember the legends of Narnia's creation, and rejoin those who awaited the return of the Great Lion. By the time the Battle of Beruna came, it was Rook who led the griffins' aerial charge. He died a hero among all Narnians.

Arrow was too young to have seen the battle, but from the look in his eyes when he spoke of it, Lucy realized Arrow held her in awe for having seen the great Rook. "What a shame you never got to meet him," she said.

"Yes," agreed Arrow. "But we honor him every day. When the sun shines on our faces, it reminds us of the gleam of his wings as he battled the Witch's army." So saying, the griffin turned toward the setting sun and spread his wings in a graceful bow.

He turned to her then with a more serious look. "You should get below and catch your rest, Your Majesty. This calm is at least good for something. I believe I'll go fish while there's light left."

She waved him off, watching as he swooped over the water. It was almost as disrespectful to ride a griffin as to ride a unicorn anywhere outside of battle, but Arrow allowed her on his back now and then. _You're such a slight thing, it's next to carrying air, anyway,_ he'd told her. Lucy suspected he enjoyed her amazement at whooshing through the air with him.

She followed his advice and found her berth, in a cabin specially prepared for her journey by the captain's orders. For a ship's cabin, it was as roomy as anything she could have wanted. The bed was quite comfortable and, encouraged by the fresh air and exercise of the day, she fell asleep almost as soon as she lay down.

\- # -

She woke later to the disconcerting sensation of lying on a steep slope. The height of the slide almost tumbled her out of bed. Leaping out of the berth, she gathered her cloak and cordial, then raced up to the deck.

She almost lost her footing on the slick, groaning wood. Lightning speared the inky sky amid driving rain. They'd gotten their wind back, and far too much of it. Lucy grabbed a rail as the _Luna_ pitched so hard it almost lay flat against the churning waves. Her stomach whirled in sympathy. The tang of ozone lay thick over the smell of the sea.

"Get below, Your Majesty!" shouted a faun. He fought to tie down a sail, but the ropes lashed away from him on the growling wind.

Ignoring the water spray spitting in her face, Lucy rushed to help him. Other sailors scrambled across the deck. The captain howled orders left and right. Most of the _Luna_ 's sails had been made fast, but their efforts made no difference to the raging sea. Lucy helped tie off the faun's sail and squinted through the storm. "Arrow? Nalis? Darius!" she called. Her words tore away on the wind, useless.

She struggled toward the port rail and held on for her life. "Arrow!" Shielding her eyes, she scanned the rigging. The griffin liked to perch there when he rested, but she saw no sign of him.

"Go below, my Queen!" urged a torn-eared satyr as he lashed a flailing shroud. "This is _Phoenix_ weather, to be sure!"

As soon as he said it, a bell from the crow's nest began clanging over the noise of thunder. "It's _her_!" shouted the lookout. "Dead behind us, and coming fast!"

A badger rushed toward the rear guns. Lucy hurried after him, horror-struck and holding an arm over her eyes to block the pelting raindrops. Her cloak was no proof against the angry storm.

In a staccato volley of lightning, she saw it. First the fore mast, then the top sail, then the bowsprit and the massive bow of the ship itself. _The Phoenix_ crested a swelling wave as if she were indeed rising from the water itself. She ran full sail. The sheets flashed in the lightning glare, looking for a moment like the ship really was aflame. She sloped down the wave and crashed into the trough with a great wave of her own, then climbed the next wave as if it were no obstacle at all. The wind was nothing to it. She gained on the crippled _Luna_ as if the frigate stood still.

"Cover yer ears, missie," the badger said, and lit the fuse on his cannon. A deafening _boom_ sounded across the rear deck. A cannonball soared toward the gaining _Phoenix_. An instant before it hit, Lucy swore she saw the missile turn white. It crashed against the bow of _The Phoenix_ and shattered into nothing.

"Don't shoot, fool, there's nothing we can do but run!" called a voice. Lucy turned to look. Kamus clung to a capstan, his wide eyes on their pursuer.

A shadow appeared at the bow of the approaching ship. An instant later, Lucy saw a smoking flash of light. She heard a _boom_ , then a horrible rushing whine.

"She's fired her warning!" Kamus cried. "We're lost!" The poor faun's eyes rolled with fright.

Lucy struggled toward him. "We must use what wind we can!" she called. "Tell the captain-"

Lightning flashed again. Lucy saw it strike the mast. She shut her eyes against the blinding light, then heard a snap and crash that made her ears ring and her teeth rattle. Muffled shouting followed it, and then she pitched into the air. Water surged over her head. Panicking, scrabbling at wet fabric trapping her arms, she struggled to hold her breath.

The water. She was in the water. She was going to drown. Lucy tumbled over, her eyes stinging with salt, unable to tell which way was up. Her heartbeat drummed frantically for air. _I can't die like this,_ she thought desperately. _I can't leave my family._

Endless seconds passed. She thought she heard shouting, but the treacherous waves distorted all noise and any hope of orienting herself. Something swished by her arm and she seized it.

Rope.

Lucy snatched it and hung on, hoping with all her might that it would lead her to the surface. And it did. Waves sloshed off her, and she could hear again. There was indeed shouting. Male voices, one louder than the rest. With a grateful heave of breath, she clung to the netting as she was hauled from the plunging waves. She looked up.

Into the face of a stranger. In a flash of lightning, she made out a tall, human man with broad shoulders and a three-cornered hat. Another day-bright flash revealed bronze eyes ( _Bronze!_ she thought, wondering if her wits had failed her), and a jagged scar across his cheek. He shouted again to two more men, who hauled the net up the side of _The Phoenix_.

Terror flashed through Lucy. She thought for an instant of letting go the net, but her only retreat was the boiling sea. She risked a look behind her and muffled a cry of distress. The _Luna_ lay broken in two on the water, burning as it sank.

Grimly, she clutched the net in her frozen fingers. Her breath steamed in front of her, and she stared at the frost-crusted hull of _The Phoenix_ as they pulled her up to the deck. She spilled out of the net, shivering, onto cold, slippery wood.

The bronze-eyed man stood over her, somehow keeping his balance on the heaving deck. He gave her a wicked smile, and it seemed his eyes flashed with a light of their own. "My, what a pretty fish we've caught, lads."


	4. Two Kinds Of Courage

_All warfare is based on deception._ \- Sun Tzu, _The Art of War_

\- # -

Lucy lay shivering on the deck. The pirate standing over her looked to the gathered men, oblivious as he to the driving rain. "Any other survivors?" he asked.

"A few, sir. Hauling them up now. Ship's lost."

The pirate frowned. "And all its cargo. Damn these storms."

The bottom dropped out of Lucy's stomach. _All of those Narnians, some of them my friends. Gone, and all he cares for is gold._ Filled with indignant rage, she struggled against wet skirts to get to her feet.

The man's attention came back to her. He looked her up and down, and his eyes lingered at her throat, where she had clasped an ornate pearl-and-sapphire necklace that morning. His expression sharpened in the staccato lightning glare as his eyes returned to her face. She shivered again and tried to back away. He stepped forward and grabbed her around the waist. Lucy squeaked and felt herself lifted from the deck. The pirate tossed her over his shoulder. She kicked, and he clamped his arm tighter around the yards of soaked fabric already restricting movement of her legs. "Resume your duties," he called. "This one needs further inspection."

Jeers followed their retreat, the tone of which Lucy didn't want to analyze too closely. The man strode aft down the deck. Lucy thought of biting him, but she'd only get a mouthful of the man's long leather coat at the angle he held her. She tried grabbing for the thick, wet ponytail of hair hanging down his back and missed. "Let go!" she shouted, kicking again, but her attempts were fruitless. "I demand you release me!"

He answered with a deep chuckle, dripping with sarcasm. "I answer to one man, leddy, and you ain't him."

They passed through a doorway. Lucy was relieved to have the rain stop splattering her face, but the sudden brightness of lantern light made her feel she'd been swallowed by _The_ _Phoenix_ , never to be seen again.

He let her down so quickly she almost fell. He snatched her forearms and held them behind her, tight enough to remind her that he was in control. If she resisted, he might easily break her arms. A glance around confirmed bare floors and walls. No weapon to be used against him, and her own strength and agility would not match his size in such tight quarters. Certainly not in these clothes. She would have to wait for her opportunity.

"Walk," he said. He pushed her forward, guiding her down a flight of steps and then another. The noise of the storm muffled. The lantern-glow increased. Lucy staggered against the rocking of the ship. Her captor held her steady. When she glared back at him, she found him wearing a half-smile of amusement. Watching him, she missed the last step down and started to fall forward.

He grabbed her tighter. One brow inched up. "Careful, now. Don't ruin that face, lovie."

Against her nature and her court manners, she started to snarl an insult, but he guided her to a final door. It couldn't be the brig; that would likely be at the bottom of the ship, and not aft. His own cabin? A ball of horror formed in her belly. _Give me courage, Aslan._

The man rapped on the door. A muffled voice bade them enter.

He pushed the door open to reveal a surprisingly spacious room with glass windows at the back, providing a lightning-lit view of the tempestuous sea that made Lucy's stomach begin pitching all over again. Lanterns swung from the ceiling beams, warming the room in their glow. The cabin was almost bare of furnishings, except for a bunk with a simply-stitched blanket, a table and stools, and what looked like a library's worth of books and maps. A half-eaten bowl of porridge sat on the table. Lucy's stomach growled.

Then she noticed the man sitting on the floor, facing the windows. His dark head was bowed. A short ponytail fell just past the nape of his neck. He wore a scarred leather jerkin.

"Cap'n?" said the man holding her.

Lucy arched around to look at him. She'd thought he was the captain.

The other stood, looking out the windows for a moment, then turned around. A cry of anguish lodged in Lucy's throat.

Edmund.

She opened her mouth, but couldn't get words out. She tried to fly to him, but her captor's grip prevented movement. One-handed, the bronze-eyed man patted her clothing with enough familiarity to draw another squeak from her breathless lungs. "She's got no weapons," he said.

A hard look came into Edmund's eyes. "Leave us."

The bronze-eyed man gave her a mocking smile and ducked out of the room.

Lucy hiked up her skirts and rushed to Edmund. She slammed against him and let out the sob that had been stuck in her throat. "You're alive! Edmund, where have you been? You must come back! We need you desperately!"

His arms came around her, but stiffly. Confused by his lack of warmth, she looked up at him. His hair was threaded with iron-grey at the temples, and a troubled look haunted his eyes. Even in the lantern light, he looked pale and weary. "Edmund, why are you not happy to see me? What is wrong?"

He raised his hand to her cheek at last, giving it a brief rub with his thumb. The corner of his mouth tilted shakily upward as if he were unused to smiling anymore. A flash of pain crossed his features. A shudder and sigh went through him, and his arms came around her fully. He held her hard, and when he spoke, his voice shook and broke. "Of course I'm happy to see you, Lu."

She sniffled and stood on her toes to kiss his cheek, and he hugged her until she could scarcely breathe. She bore it as long as she could, and when she pulled back, he loosened his grip. "Edmund, everyone thinks you've turned traitor."

He flinched. She met his eyes to find him with that hard look again. " _I_ don't," she added softly.

He let her go. "What about Peter and Susan?"

She shivered with cold and delayed shock. Edmund crossed the floor to his bunk and pulled the blanket from it to wrap around her.

Searching for words, looking around the cabin as if it could provide them, she said, "They haven't said much ... but they worry about you. Susan's not certain you're even alive. Peter ..." How to explain Peter? Peter, who was closest to Ed, and who felt so betrayed, who barely spoke of Edmund. Peter, who hurt worse than any of them (even though he never said it, Lucy knew) because Edmund's support had always been there when the High King faltered. "He's very angry, Edmund. He thinks you've abandoned ..." _Him._ "... Narnia."

Ed nodded. "Good."

Hot tears trickled down her salt-stiff cheeks. "How can you _say_ that? I left them to find you! To bring you home!"

"I can't go, Lucy. I wrote to you. I told you why."

"For Asha? Is this all to find her a cure? Edmund! What's happened to you?"

He approached her and laid his hands on her shoulders. The hurt in his eyes was unmistakable. "Lucy, Asha is in Selbaran. She is an hour's walk from the Well of Opals, the best possible cure for a dryad. Why would I need to find another?"

Lucy's mouth fell open. "You were trying to get a message past the spies to me." Hope dashed aside the months of anxiety she'd felt looking at his empty throne. "Then, there's a reason you've been gone. A mission."

" _What's done is done,"_ he quoted. "When is the last time you heard someone say that?"

"Aslan," she said. "The day they rescued you from the White Witch. 'What's done is done,' he said. 'There is no need to speak to Edmund about what is past.'" A thrill of understanding went through her. "He knew! He knew this would come to be, and that's what you talked about that day! Edmund, you must tell me _everything_." She hugged him tight, and the tears flowed down her cheeks unchecked. "Oh, Ed, I should have known, I should have understood!"

He hugged her back, so hard she thought her ribs might crack. "You _believed_ , Lu," he said hoarsely, "and that's better."


	5. Catch And Release

Edmund and Lucy sat at the table in his cabin. He told her of Aslan's instructions for him-to play the traitor he once had been, to leave Narnia and make for the seas, where he would infiltrate the Witch's forces and learn what he could of her whereabouts and her plans. In the year since his departure from Narnia, Ed had amassed a breathtaking store of knowledge about enemy movements, as well as an alarming amount of riches.

"But Peter can use this! The intelligence, the gold!" she said.

"He _is_ using it," Edmund said with a touch of annoyance in his voice. "Do you think I would keep it to myself when I know he needs it?"

"He says nothing of your work here."

"He _knows_ nothing of it, and it's safer that way. I have a network, Lucy, just as I did when I was home." He waved a hand at the stack of letters on the table. "I have been feeding this to Narnia through my runners since the day I left. The information is what's important. The gold greases the wheels of those who would carry it."

She thought of the unsavory lot she'd seen on deck, not the least of which was the long-haired man who'd accosted her. "Do your men know?"

He shook his head, and Lucy felt a pang of sympathy for the loneliness he must have felt these many months. "They believe we run weapons for the Witch's allies. Which we do," he added. "Enough to have the look of supporting Jadis, without being too much in her favor. The rest are siphoned back to Narnia." He raised a brow at her. "I'm the privateer our dear brother doesn't know about."

Lucy noticed he didn't shirk from saying the Witch's name aloud as he used to do. "What if _she_ finds out? Or that Nazi soldier who follows her?"

He grinned, and it was fully the old Edmund. "We also deal in misinformation. Brilliantly, I might add."

She answered the grin with one of her own. "How did you do it? How did you do all this in one year?" She sobered and added, "And all alone."

"I haven't been," he said. "I am still soulbound, Lu. Asha's with me wherever I go." He stood and rounded the table. He paused at her seat and kissed the top of her head. "And now you're here."

She smiled. "Aslan put me in your path on purpose, Ed. You needed me."

He held out his arm. "Let's check on the rest of your shipmates."

\- # -

The storm had calmed at last, and the rain stopped. Van hung from the rigging by his knees, the better to get at a loose knot in the netting. Upside-down while he tied it, he noticed the captain and the woman walking down the deck. Sailors bowed out of their way, showing proper deference to their captain, and giving the woman lingering looks. A pretty pair, that. But this ship was no place for a woman.

The captain stopped below Van's perch. "Come down," he called.

The woman looked like she would rather he climb higher instead-maybe leap to his death from the crow's nest-but he obeyed, scrambling down the netting and dropping to the deck.

"Van, this is Lady Kirke," the captain said. The woman shot him a look, but the captain ignored it to add, "She is a guest, and she's to be treated with the highest respect. I'm putting you in charge of guarding her."

"Guard?" she repeated with a note of protest. "This man threw me on his shoulder like a sack of turnips!"

Van leered. "These are rough men. Better I do that quickly and get you to the safety of Cap'n's charge than let you linger about on deck."

"She's your charge now," the captain said. "I expect you to mind her closely."

The seriousness in the captain's tone made Van take a second look, first at him, and then at the woman. Lady Kirke glanced around the deck at the crew, cautious, but with a lack of fear that impressed him.

"Show her to her shipmates," the captain said. To the woman, he added, "I will have my bunk prepared for you, and take another. Return when you're ready to retire." He kissed the woman's hand. The gesture startled Van, who'd never seen the captain act with such chivalry-no, affection-in his demeanor. Come to think on it, the captain stood quite close beside her, in a restless, light-footed posture he normally reserved for battles at sea. Van swept the nearby crew with another look. This woman must be valuable, indeed-a rare insight to the captain of _The Phoenix_ , who never gave details of his life even to Van. At sea, you didn't ask for such things, and you didn't give them.

As soon as the captain had gone, Van stepped to her side-much closer than necessary. "Who are you?"

"He has already told you who I am," she responded coldly-a no-nonsense tone much like the one the captain used, given only by a person unused to being disobeyed. She walked away toward the starboard railing. "I would like to see to the _Luna's_ survivors."

Van stared at her silhouette. The sky had begun clearing ahead. Starlight outlined her figure, small, and smaller yet under yards of ridiculous, wasted fabric. How could a woman even move in all those trappings? He pulled a twist of rope from his pocket and chewed its end, angling his head and watching her stiff-backed posture. "Kirke," he said. She didn't respond. Van stalked to the railing, right up behind her.

She whirled around with her eyes blazing, and there was a knife against his belly before he even saw it in her hand. "He asked you to guard me, but you'd best not forget I can guard myself also. Is that clear?" she said.

"Sure, leddy," he answered, lifting his hands slowly into the air. He hadn't noticed the little thing during his weapons check, and it angered him that she got it past him. He started to focus on the hilt, just visible in her hand, with some sort of animal-head shape to it, but she pressed harder and brought his attention back to her eyes.

With slow, deliberate movements, he plucked the twist of rope from his mouth and gestured at her with it. "What's not clear is why you don't answer to your own name."

They stared at each other for a few seconds.

Allowing a hint of smirk into his features, he tilted his head toward the ship's bow. "They'll be that way."

She turned and strode aft. Smiling, he followed her. She reminded him of the kestrels in the fields at home, small and fierce. With weapons no less sharp for their lack of size, he thought ruefully, rubbing his belly through the nick she'd put in his shirt.

The captain had handed him quite the mystery. That would sweeten this voyage almost as much as the gold in his pockets.


	6. Suspicions

Lucy and Van heard shouting as they approached the stern of the ship, interspersed with terrible shrieks. "Arrow," Lucy whispered. She rushed forward, only half-hearing as Van gave a surprised shout and hurried behind her.

A half-circle of men, boggles, dwarves, hags, and other creatures less recognizable held Arrow at bay with drawn weapons. The griffin stood dripping on a capstan, with his wings spread over a cowering badger, Kamus the faun, and a dryad. The griffin shrieked again at _The Phoenix_ 's crew, daring them to come closer to the remaining passengers of the _Luna_.

"Stop!" Lucy cried. "Lower your weapons!" She pushed between a pair of surprised hags, and spun toward the crew of _The Phoenix_. "Lay down your weapons, I said! These are my charges!"

"Do it," said Van. The crew gave him disappointed looks (Lucy thought he returned the scowl when the hags eyed him), but they backed off. Van stepped into the breach and approached.

Arrow drew in a deep breath as if smelling the air, then gave another shriek. "No farther!" When Van didn't stop, he leaped to the deck at Lucy's side and hissed.

Van stopped short and held out his hands. "Tell your overgrown parrot I'm not hurting you."

Arrow shrieked again and started to lunge at him. Lucy laid a hand on the griffin's tawny side. "It's all right, Arrow."

The griffin lashed his tail. The feathered tip gusted her hair into her face. She brushed it away and said, "Van is ... ah ..."

The man stood stiff as bricks. "First mate aboard _The Phoenix_. You're welcome for the rescue."

The griffin ignored him. "Are you hurt, my lady?"

"I'm well." She put her arms around the griffin's neck to hug him, a gesture which clearly surprised him, but the close quarters allowed her to whisper in his ear. "King Edmund is aboard, but the crew doesn't know who we are. I'll explain later."

The rest of the _Luna_ 's survivors came closer, and Lucy greeted them all with relief. _No others?_ she thought sadly, but she refused to dwell on the thought. The survivors needed her courage. She turned to Van. "I'd like to see them to suitable quarters."

"It's the middle of the night. Captain's expecting you to return to your bunk," Van said.

"Not until my crew are safely quartered," Lucy insisted. She glanced around at the gathered crew of _The Phoenix_.

Van must have read her apprehension, because he nodded and showed the survivors to their accommodations. To the badger and dryad, he gave space in one of the unused forward bunks. "Do you have any soil aboard?" Lucy asked.

"Soil?" Van echoed.

Lucy stepped closer to him to murmur discreetly. "The badger may subsist on vegetable matter. Kamus can eat whatever you or I do. The griffin-Arrow-will want meat. But a dryad needs soil, or she will starve. How close are we to land?"

"Another week to ... Selbaran ... if we bear southward. That's up to the captain."

She wondered why he hesitated, but pulled her mind back to the current problem. "He'll agree," Lucy said. _That may be too long,_ she fretted silently.

Van narrowed his eyes. "Tell me who you are."

She raised a brow. "That's up to the captain."

\- # -

Van found places for the faun and griffin. The faun, he put belowdecks with crew he trusted to treat the creature with civility. The griffin, however, refused to be quartered inside, and took a spot instead on a foremast beam. Exasperated with the feather-and-fur nuisance, Van stalked to his cabin. He'd have maybe an hour's sleep before the ship's bell roused him.

He found the captain carrying a hammock toward the cook's supply closet. "What are you doing?"

"Sleeping elsewhere while the lady takes my bunk. I believe you heard me discussing it earlier." The captain gave him a sardonic look. "You didn't expect me to put her with the crew."

Van didn't expect females on the ship. He didn't expect to lose a night of sleep over a squawking griffin. He didn't expect his captain to be so unorthodox as to give up his sign of authority to a woman, while he slept with sacks of onion and dried meat. "Who _is_ this woman?" he demanded. "Whatever she is, it's not Lady Kirke."

The captain's expression hardened then, into something dangerous that even Van dared not trifle with. "That's the only name you're going to get from me, and I suggest you don't pry. Good night, Van." He started off, but a second later he stopped and went rigid. His nostrils flared, even though Van couldn't smell anything on the breeze. "Who did we bring aboard from the wreck?"

"A faun. A badger. A bad-tempered griffin, who I'd really like to make into a feather bed. Another, too, a-"

The dryad appeared as if summoned, rushing up the steps in a swirl of oak leaves that stayed in a human-shaped mass in spite of the wind. Seeing the captain, she halted. "I had to see," she breathed. "If it was really-"

"Be silent!" the captain snapped.

The dryad lunged backward. She and Van both stared at the captain, whose face had gone blank-the same expression, Van knew, that the captain used when sailing unfriendly waters. "Go back to your bunk," the captain said to the dryad. "Any message you have may be carried to me by your lady."

The dryad-if Van read her features correctly-looked crestfallen, but she retreated. It occurred to Van again how little he knew of the captain under whom he sailed. Not even his name. "Captain" had always been sufficient for Van, a man concerned only with hired wages.

Man. Even that was a farce. Van had no right to quibble about hidden identities, when he never disclosed his own. But there was more to the captain than it seemed, just as there was more to Lady "Kirke" than either of them let on. Van stared after as the captain continued on toward the cook's supply closet. The captain played his hand discreetly, but the evidence was clear that something didn't add up. The more Van thought about it, the less he thought he was looking at the average pirate sailor when he looked at the captain. Manners didn't lie. The captain carried more authority than the usual shipmaster, and the lady bore herself with the air of a courtier.

Van's first thought was of his own skin. It might be more than his life was worth to learn the pair's true identities, especially if he found himself on the wrong side of this battle of country against country.

Man. Van wondered if the captain were any more a man than _he_ was. For what man in the world could scent a dryad?


	7. New Arrivals

Edmund closed the door to the cook's closet and set a lantern burning. He unfolded his hammock from the trailing jumble it had been in his arms. Inside lay the only two things he had that might have connected him with his loyalties to Narnia.

He stared at the White Witch's wand for a while. The longer it was in his possession, the more he worried the thing had permanently affected his life. He felt so cold, so removed from everything. All his decisions, all that had to be done, had forced him to remain apart from everything he loved. In more than a year, the only solid proof he'd had that something else waited for him at the end of this was the other thing in the bundle.

His sword, Wandbreaker, the name by which Aslan had knighted him. The wand no longer seemed to resent the nearness of his sword as it once had when he held the two together. If an object could be said to have feeling, Edmund suspected the two weapons had formed some kind of accord. That bothered him daily, wondering what it might mean.

He strapped the wand to a high beam in the room, then sat on a crate of dried provisions with his sword across his lap. Running his fingertips across the scabbard's belt, he swallowed back a knot in his throat. Tooled into the leather in exquisite detail was a design of trailing birch leaves.

This sword had been made long before his family's arrival in Narnia. No one had used it before Oreius presented it to him, prior to the Battle of Beruna. Ed fingered the birch-leaf pattern again. Had the Lion known even before they came the way things would go? That this was not only a symbol for rebirth, but a literal representation of the woman-the dryad-Edmund loved with everything he was? Had he known Edmund would need the reminder now, more than he ever had, that there was a reason for all this anguish?

He stroked the belt one last time, then raised it to his lips and kissed it. "Soon," he whispered. "Soon."

\- # -

Lucy could not stand Van. From the moment she woke to the instant her head hit the pillow at night, he was a burr attached to everything she did. Only when she was with Edmund did she find some respite. Even he would not cross "the captain."

But in all other respects, he didn't leave her alone. Over the next three days, he shadowed her, asking pointed questions about her accent, her manner of dress, and her idiosyncrasies of what must have been "local custom" where she lived. She evaded all of it, but he persisted.

Someone aboard found her a sailor's pants, shirt, and vest of sturdy material. She gladly bade goodbye to the restrictive dress, but when she emerged from cabin that morning in her borrowed garments, Van found her yet again. She blushed hot when he studied her figure. "Don't you have a deck to swab or a knot to tie?"

He grinned, and the flash of white in his suntanned face startled her. "Much better," he said, nodding at her clothing. "Leastwise, you won't be tripping on that mass of curtain fabric you had on before. Can't imagine how you even got out of it."

Privately she agreed with him, but aloud and for propriety's sake, she said, "I'll thank you to steer clear of the topic of women's dresses, and how to get them on _or_ off."

"Don't get in a huff, now. I'm complimenting you," he said.

She eyed him, wondering what angle he'd try next, but when she approached her forced escort, his expression changed to one of surprise. "Shivering rocks, you're small. That dress made two of you. How in the world did you drag it around?"

"Didn't we just discuss not discussing dresses?"

He grinned again. " _You_ did, leddy. And I politely listened to every word."

With a rueful sigh, she accompanied him to the ship's wheel. One of the sailors held it steady going southwest. Lucy had grown so used to seeing Edmund standing there that his absence immediately raised an alarm. She looked up. No Arrow in the rigging. Kamus had been laid low by illness since his arrival on _The Phoenix_ , and the dryad took pains to stay out of Ed's way.

"Don't worry, he's afore," Van said. "It seems we're picking up another pair of stragglers."

She hurried to the ship's bow, two steps to Van's one. Two lines of sailors hauled on nets slung over the side of the ship. A frightful swearing carried across the deck.

Edmund stood well back, almost to the port rail. To anyone else, he would merely have looked stern, but Lucy knew him well enough to see trouble brewing.

Then she saw why. Over the side of the ship tumbled a pair of centaurs knotted up in fishing nets like the day's catch.

Nalis and his son, Darius.

Lucy rushed to the starboard railing to find a makeshift raft floating away on the water. "How … ?"

The sailors pulled the nets away from the centaurs. Growling threats, Nalis lurched upright. Beside him, Darius did the same. The two glared around the deck until Lucy saw Nalis lock eyes with Edmund. The centaur's jaw dropped, and his hindquarters bunched as if he were about to leap forward.

A flash of brown and silver streaked past Lucy's shoulder. Van (she'd forgotten about him) darted between Nalis and Edmund, holding a pair of what looked like sai: hand-held, trident-shaped weapons. The steel gleamed in the morning sun. Van gave the big centaur a malevolent snarl. "Wouldn't try that, mate."

Behind him, Ed gave the centaur a head shake that would have been imperceptible if Lucy's attention hadn't been on him. Most of the crew stared at Nalis and Van. Only the wind, water, and creaking deck boards broke the silence.

At last, Ed strode forward. "As you were," he snarled to the crew. Almost everyone scattered, but Ed pulled a young boggle aside. "See to their accommodation. Get them something to dry off, some ale."

Still holding the sai, Van moved closer to Edmund. Lucy hurried toward them quickly enough to hear Van murmur, "We need to talk."


	8. Bad News All Around

Van stalked with the captain to the cook's closet. The lady trailed after, but both he and the captain asked her to wait at the door.

Once they were inside, Van muttered, "May I have your permission to talk plain. Sir."

The captain nodded once and gestured to a crate for Van to sit.

He didn't. "Look, I'll let pass a good bit, Captain. A ship that freezes even in southern waters. Running weapons for a lot who'll just as soon hang us, and with a crew that might do the same, if it weren't for the loot we haul in. I wouldn't even mind defending you if it happened. You're the damnedest sailor I ever met. But starting with that leddy out there, we've been pulling in trouble by the minute. I say we unload them in Selbaran, or at the Faeries' Gate—"

"Absolutely not."

Van pointed angrily at the door. "They. Are. Narnian. And she's allied with them. And now, it's not just a feather duster, a goat, and a talkin' tree. Those are centaurs. Warriors. They're more trouble to keep alive than if we drop them back overboard."

"I will not kill in cold blood," the captain said.

"And what happens when your moment of kindness gets our throats cut?"

The captain laughed, actually laughed. "We've been in danger of that from day one of our endeavors, Van." More seriously, he added, "Now they've seen _The Phoenix_ and her crew, we can't risk word getting out. But neither will I suffer them dying on my watch. Is that clear?"

Van glared at him. He had enough authority, and enough rapport, with the captain to do that, but duty and respect forced him to respond with, "Yessir."

The captain smiled. "Easy, Van. I wouldn't put us in any danger I could otherwise avoid." He clapped Van on the shoulder. " _Further_ danger."

After a moment, Van grinned back, acknowledging the joke. They had spent their first voyage outrunning cannon fire from Archenlander ships, and then ducking customs authorities from the Lone Islands. Van had scars on his back from sliding down roof tile on his escape from the governor's men on Doorn.

Captain bore a scar or two, himself. Van had barreled into his cabin in a fit of pique one evening to find the captain in the middle of changing his shirt. One side, near his waistline, bore a nasty stab scar from a pike or spear. The other side, almost in the same place, had a neat little knife slice.

That was one of the reasons Van sailed with him. A man who bore no scars had no experience, and no business on the ocean. A man who had lived to carry scars such as the captain wore ... What a story that must be.

But Van had learned not to ask. And, it seemed, the list of things he could ask about the captain and that lady outside was getting shorter every moment.

\- # -

Peter sank heavily to a camp chair outside his tent, exhausted and sweating under his armor in spite of the deep snow. They had been chasing a band of trolls who had invaded Narnia for the past two days. He had lost two dwarf bowmen to the trolls' poisoned spears, and everyone was as tired as he.

Everyone except Onyx, the unicorn who had, years ago, appointed himself Peter's battle mount. "Are you sure you don't want me to keep going, sire?" the unicorn said. "I could be there and back overnight, with news on their movements."

Peter didn't need the intelligence. He knew the trolls were trying to get to the White Witch's abandoned castle, and he knew why. In it lay a hoard of treasure, the likes of which could end a war in favor of the side who claimed it.

If only he could touch it. The treasure was cursed. Anyone who laid hands on it would remain in that treasure room forever, fawning over his wealth, not realizing he was trapped there with it until he starved to death. Peter had narrowly escaped such a fate, and to this day he attributed that escape to Aslan.

He had hoped the Witch's allies would not have the means to break the spell that cursed the hoard. But he knew better. _This may be harder than you think,_ he heard Aslan say in his memory.

True words indeed. His whole kingship had been harder than he'd thought. What he needed was a different angle, a strategy the Witch wouldn't expect, wherever she was. He needed Edmund. Damn his turncoat, dismissive, cunning, desperately needed brother. Damn him for not being there at Peter's side when he needed an ally he could trust.

Peter waved Onyx off, more to get the unicorn away than to gather information. When Onyx had gone, Peter rubbed his gloved, frost-numb hands across his bearded face. "Ed," he whispered, "where are you?"

The punch of running feet through snow reached his ears. Peter spied a streak of grey from the corner of his eye. Leina, a wolf—and until he abandoned them, Edmund's constant shadow. How prophetic.

And not good prophecy, by the look of it. He stared at her as she skidded to a stop before his chair, gasping. No greeting, which didn't shock him, but the concern on her face did. His hawk companion, Salvia, flew down from the finial of Peter's tent to perch on a crate. "Is Susan all right?" Peter asked. "Saris?"

"It's not them I've come for. Queen Lucy took ship for Selbaran."

"I know."

The wolf shook her head frantically. "No, no, the ship was attacked. Sunk by _The Phoenix_. I have it from an albatross who saw the wreck, and _The Phoenix_ sailing away from the site."

Lucy. Oh, Lucy, Lucy.

A wave of nausea plowed over Peter. The little he'd eaten churned in his stomach and fought to come back up. "Does Susan know?" he croaked out.

Leina shook her shaggy head again. Even she looked remorseful—she, who had never allowed anything to dull her sharp tongue, even when throwing barbs at him about his knighted name, Wolf's-Bane. "Your news first," she panted. Her serious expression drove the truth home. _The Phoenix_ never left anything to be mourned behind.

Lucy. The best of them. Unfaltering. Now dead.

His breath came short as he rose from his chair. His head swam with fatigue, pain, and fury. "I don't care how you do it, or whose help you get," he said, struggling to control his trembling even as his voice betrayed it. "Find that ship, and have it burned it into the ocean on sight."

\- # -

Lucy paced back and forth, waiting for Van and Edmund to emerge from the cabin. When they did, a silent look from Ed conveyed all she needed to know. Van and the crew were unaware of Ed's identity, and would remain so. It would be Lucy's task, then, to be certain the centaurs didn't give him away.

Van stared hard at her for several moments. When Edmund departed, he wasn't so silent about the conversation. His mouth twisted into a snarl. He let loose a string of curses, only half-muffled in allowance of her presence.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I don't like it," Van said. "It's flat insane. Captain's not going to execute them."

"Of course not!" she exclaimed. "We don't even know what they want yet."

Van looked around with a cautious expression, then rounded on her and grabbed her by the arms so fast she yelped in shock. "I do. _You._ You're going to tell me who you are. I see an ax hanging over your head, and I don't want to be nearby when it falls."

"What?" she sputtered. "What are you ... Are you mad? Get your hands off me!" She wrestled with his grip, but he held on harder, his eyes blazing. He held her close enough that she saw startling flecks of near-black in the bronze of his irises. The bronze glittered like pyrite, a fascinating, changing array of rust to gold that had her staring even after they both stilled. From there, her gaze dropped to his mouth, twisted into that sneer. She wondered for a bewildering instant what his smile might look like at such close range.

Then he stopped sneering. His gaze flicked over her face and landed on her own mouth. His bruising grip on her arms tightened convulsively and he jerked closer.

Lucy listened to the wind whistle through the rigging, certain he could hear her thundering heartbeat over it.

Then he thrust her away.

"Wait!" she cried, still dazed. "How do you know ... The ax? What is that, what does it mean?"

But he swept out of sight without a word.


	9. A Little Bit Irresistible

The next few days went smoothly enough, Van considered, for all they were harboring a bunch of enemies. He had his hands full quelling the crew's concerns about it ... and when he wasn't doing that, he had to escort Lady Kirke around the ship like a governess.

Neither had mentioned the subject of her fate since that first instance when he envisioned the ax suspended quite literally over her head. He knew nothing else about it, just that gleaming steel, and she, somehow unable to escape it. The visions were like that—disjointed and without explanation, uncontrollable and unbidden. An unfortunate occasional side effect of his heritage.

But sometimes it stood him in good stead. When he met the captain, he'd seen piles of gold. Sure enough, his time aboard _The Phoenix_ had brought him wealth as well as danger. Soon, he'd have enough to withdraw from the whole mess of this war. One of the smaller, unnamed islands past Selbaran, maybe. A suitable enough location for someone who wanted to be left to himself.

But Lady Kirke presented a new problem. Try as he might, he couldn't stop wondering about her. The very fact that he did so frustrated him. He had spent his life not looking into other people's business, and expecting that they not look into his own. He didn't want to wonder about her ... but the idea of her being marked to die, when he'd seen her so fiercely protective of creatures not even her own kind—that sat like spoiled food in his belly. Yet another unwanted reaction.

Much like his grudging admiration of her. She was as useful as she was ... decorative. Once she was freed of that outlandish wearable tapestry and put in proper sailor's clothing, she roamed about the ship like one of the crew, unafraid of heights or loss of balance. She knew how to gauge the wind, how to tie ropes, and could answer to within a knot or two how fast they sailed without needing to measure. Matter of fact, the only points at which she hesitated were in her concerns about her charges—the Narnians—or when he questioned her about her knowledge of the captain. She still avoided response, but Van, seeing her with the Narnians, now believed them both to be allied at one time (if not now) to that country. And if he believed that, the crew must be guessing it as well.

Then what in the watery Underland were they doing shipping weapons for the White Witch?

No one came to him about any suspicions regarding the captain's loyalties. His word was as good as the captain's when handing orders to the crew, and they followed it as a crew should. Without question or contest, and to the letter. But he wondered too, how long that would hold.

He looked up from the sea chart in his hands. He sat on the aft deck, his eyes shaded from the glare by the wide brim of his hat. Lady Kirke stood across the deck with the dryad, bareheaded, her hair tied into a long tail down her back and gone a bit reddish under the sun. He shifted his attention with some effort to the dryad, who (even to his untrained eye) looked much the worse for wear.

Lady Kirke hurried to him. "She's worse. I don't think she'll make it to Selbaran. Is there even a handful of soil aboard? Anything from sweeping the decks or cabins?"

"We toss dirt overboard, leddy," he said. But the distress in her eyes tugged at his conscience—or what passed for one, when he bothered to employ it. He laid his chart down and stood. "You there!" he called to a hag scrubbing the deck. "Go down to the hold and sweep. Whatever dirt you find, bring it up. Quickly." The hag gave a disgruntled hiss, but she rushed off. Feeling disgruntled himself, Van said, "Much good may it do you."

Lady Kirke's hands closed over his, surprising him into stillness. He met her gaze to find her eyes shining. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

A glance around the aft deck confirmed that the hag's retreat had left them quite alone (except for the dryad, who appeared to be lost in her own miseries). Their near-solitude somehow made the happiness in Lady Kirke's eyes even more uncomfortable. Backed into a corner by her gratitude, he retreated further into surliness. He gripped her hands and turned them over in his. "These aren't the hands of a courtier."

Her expression changed to wariness. "And they never will be. I like to work."

"A woman doesn't belong aboard a ship, much less this one."

"What about her?" the lady demanded, pointing in the direction the hag had gone.

"She's not human," he blurted. And not attractive. And didn't have eyes like agate stones. And didn't have hair like dark teakwood, with a spirit just as resolute against the elements. And didn't distract him when he ought to be going about his work. And didn't ...

"So what if she isn't human? Neither are you."

His frustration and temper flared. For an instant, he almost shoved her hard enough to make her fall, but the look in her eyes froze him in place. She wasn't hostile. Her tone hadn't been accusing, either—merely as matter-of-fact as she did everything else. He jerked his hands away from her. "What do you know about it?"

"I'm not stupid," she said. "You might be part human, or mostly. But no human's got eyes like yours." She angled her head in a curious attitude that had him focusing on her mouth. "You act like I should care."

"Never mind what I am," he snarled, backing away. "It's what _you_ are I'm worried about."

"Speaking of worries," interrupted the captain in a tone that said _shut it_ , "we've got a few of our own."

Van looked up. The captain stood (How had he appeared that fast?) at the port rail with a spyglass at his eye. A second later, the sailor in the crow's nest called, "Sail ho!"

Van hurried to the rail with the lady two steps after.

"A Selbarani ship," the captain said. His mouth set in a grim line. "She's headed hard this way, and her guns are out."


	10. Misdirection

Lucy hurried to the rail beside her brother and squinted into the glare of the sun on the water. "She's not after us," Lucy murmured, seeing specks on the horizon behind the Selbarani ship. "She's running from _them_."

Other ships. Three of them, fanned out behind like an honor guard, but Lucy knew better. The fin-shaped sails identified the others as Calormene.

A flash of firelight burst from one of the Calormene ships, and an instant later, Lucy heard the distant _boom_ of cannon fire. Fearfully, she turned to Edmund. She knew his safety lay in avoiding other ships of any alliance where possible, but an attack on a ship of Selbaran might be more than he could stand. "It may be time to show your colors," she said softly.

Van came to the rail. "What are your orders?"

Ed's expression went grim and regretful. "We run."

Van might have taken it for missing an opportunity for plunder, but Lucy knew better. Ed's eyes remained on the Selbarani ship, and it took no great effort to see he was thinking of Asha. She could almost hear him grinding his teeth. "They'll sink it," she whispered.

"She's not on it," Ed snapped. Van gave them both a look, clearly wondering what wasn't being said. Ed started away from the rail, then halted, clenching his fist. He snarled an ugly curse and met Van's gaze. "We draw the Calormenes' fire. _Then_ run."

Van's eyes went round. _"What?"_

"We're fast enough to do it," Edmund explained. "The wind is always with us. We can make it to the Faeries' Gate if we lighten our load."

Van got right in his face. If it had been Peter, Ed might have backed down. Not so with Van. "The heaviest thing we carry is _gold,_ " Van said.

Ed's eyes lit up. He looked into the rigging and put two fingers to his lips, then whistled loudly. "Arrow!"

The griffin soared down and landed on the deck.

"What's the most weight you can carry and still maintain your agility?"

"A man and a little more," Arrow said. He glanced at Lucy. "Or a heavier load, if the rider is small."

Lucy began to see where Ed's thoughts were leading. Excitement ran circles under her skin. "A small pouch of gold. Maybe two. I can do it, E—" She bit off the rest of his name with her heart pounding, then nodded. "I can do it."

Ed reached into his belt and tossed her a set of keys. "The silver one. There's a safe in my cabin. Hurry."

Lucy raced away.

\- # -

"You're going to let her fly toward them?" Van demanded. "What if they fire before they realize what she's carrying? They'll blow her out of the sky like a boy slinging stones at pigeons!"

The captain's dark eyes met his. One brow quirked upward in a maddening display of amusement. "Concerned for her, Van? That's almost chivalrous of you."

"I'm concerned for our _necks_ ," Van snarled.

"She's flown with him plenty," the captain assured him. "They're fast. A griffin can outmaneuver firearms and cannon, as long as he stays in the sun glare. Once she drops the bait, the Calormenes will come right to us. And we are only a handful of leagues from the Faeries' Gate, my friend."

"You're stark mad," Van growled. "What if the Selbarani fire at us while the leddy's occupied with the Calormenes?"

A whirl of leaves approached. The captain turned to the dryad before she even got close. "The Selbarani will have the food you need, and be able to heal your illness. Can you get to the ship if we steer close enough past it?" he asked.

The dryad's gaze went from the captain to the ship running desperately from the Calormenes. "Yes," she said softly, "I think so." Her gaze came back to the captain. Even Van, unfamiliar with dryads, could see the admiration, even adoration, on her face.

"Good." The captain stayed silent a moment. When he spoke again, his voice went curiously soft. "Say nothing to anyone, except to her, when you see her. I charge you with that task."

"As you say," the dryad said, dipping her head.

"What the ...?" Van sputtered. The captain started away toward the ship's wheel, and Van chased after him. "First, you said you wanted no one to leave the ship. Now, you're letting her go?"

"Yes, Van. She can be trusted to keep silent."

"Until she gets to whoever this 'her' is you're sending her to. Which is who?"

"You needn't worry about her," the captain said. "Rather we concern ourselves with how to put ocean between _The Phoenix_ and the Calormenes."

" _After_ enraging them," Van said. "I don't like flying blind, captain, and I've been doing an awful lot of it of late."

The captain smiled at him, almost sympathetic, and more than a bit ironic. "I need you to trust me a bit longer, Van."

Minutes later, Lady Kirke emerged from the captain's cabin ( _proper_ cabin, Van reminded himself) with two leather sacks and the keys. The latter, she tossed to the captain. The captain plucked them from the air with an ease completely at odds with the fact that they were about to instigate cannon fire. "I don't trust anyone," Van said. "That's how I made it to the ripe old age of three-and-sixty."

The captain's gaze came up, quirk-browed and amused. "You're sixty-three?"

"Chronologically," Van snapped. "Physically, I'm probably younger than _you_."

The captain just grinned at the insult, unruffled.

Lady Kirke eyed them both. "Shouldn't we get started?"

The captain gave Van a last smile, then, looking at the lady, he sobered. "You'll need a harness."

"I can stay on. I've flown with him before," she said.

"I've been on a griffin in a power dive. You'll need a harness," the captain added.

The lady's cheeks pinkened, and she scowled at him with such ferocity that Van expected her glare to knock the captain on his rear. The captain bore the look with a feigned ignorance suggesting this sort of argument happened between them all the time. Reservations forgotten (but still wondering when and where the captain had flown on a griffin), Van stared at Lady Kirke. She hefted both sacks of coin toward Arrow.

The captain fished a sailor's belt from a hook and adjusted it around the griffin's barrel, saddle-fashion, with no hesitation about touching the irritable creature. The griffin bore it with calm, even dignity. "That'll have to do. All right?"

The griffin nodded. The captain helped the lady onto the creature's back, then tied the sacks to its harness. "Drop one when you get over the lead Calormene ship. Tear a hole with your dagger. They should see the glitter as the coins fall. Use the other only if you need it. If they catch you, you'll need to bargain with it, tell them there's more to be had." He gave her hand a squeeze. "Be careful."

"I always am," she said, and whooshed from the deck in a flurry of wind. The griffin's screech filled Van's ears, and as they soared upward, his belly plunged downward. What if she died in this foolhardy attempt? For what? A ship who would have as likely fired upon them, had she not been running from the Calormenes? Van glared at the captain with even more ferocity than the lady had shown him. How could a man who clearly wanted her safe one moment, encourage her into danger the next?

But then, he considered as he tracked the swish of the retreating griffin's feathered tail, the lady would probably not have listened to the captain had he been screaming in her ears. She struck Van as far and away the most stubborn, fearless creature he'd ever met. And he hardly knew her.

But he'd be changing that ... if they survived this.


	11. Lucy In Battle

"He's suspicious," Arrow said once they were out of earshot. "I don't like it, Your Majesty."

"If Van's been with Edmund all this time, and not wondered about Ed's loyalties until now, Ed must have been doing something right," Lucy called back as they soared through the air. "Or maybe you're just put out because I was right and we did find Edmund after all?"

The griffin harrumphed and turned his head long enough to fix a yellow eye on her. "All right, you've had your _I told you so_."

Lucy giggled.

"I don't know how you're so cheerful. We're about to get shot at," Arrow said.

"I have faith in you," she said, patting his shoulder.

They passed over the Selbarani ship, and with relief, Lucy saw the dryad make it to the deck. Selbarani dryads circled her. She'd get better now. _Thank you, Aslan, for watching over her. Now, if you can just grant us a little speed..._

They approached the Calormene ship. Even at this height, Lucy heard their shouts. She reached to her belt for her cordial dagger.

Far below, she heard a _thwack_ , and a moment later, Arrow swerved in midair. Lucy yelped and grabbed for the harness, and her dagger slipped from her fingers. "My knife!"

The griffin dove. The ship's deck loomed up at an alarming rate. Lucy clutched the harness with a mental thank-you to Ed for being at least as stubborn as she was. Arrow chased the flashing, tumbling knife—the knife Father Christmas gave her, the knife that had been with her through all her Narnian adventures, the knife that was about to be lost at the bottom of the ocean. Or to a Calormene. Arrow stretched out his claws and just missed the knife as another _thwack_ preceded a crossbow bolt zinging past Lucy's head.

She heard voices now, saw faces. A young man looked up from the deck, and Lucy gasped at the resemblance to Rabadash. He shouted, and another crossbow bolt whipped past them, shearing off a fluff of feathers in its wake. "Watch out!"

The griffin reached again. They were almost at mast height now, too far out of the sun. The Calormenes scattered for weapons. One raced for a platform on the ship's deck, which held a large crossbow. A repeating one. Roman in design—no mistake. Except that it looked an awful lot like...

Lucy held her breath, wide-eyed, as the sailor leaped behind the artillery and swiveled it toward her.

...a World War II gun turret.

"Arrow!" she screamed. "Up, up!"

Arrow snarled. "Almost ..."

He strained forward and clapped his claws together over the falling blade. The _snap_ of his opening wings made Lucy's ears ring, and she slammed against his body as they shot back upward. Calormenes shouted, and then _thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack_ , crossbow bolts pelted through the air all around them. Lucy yelped and ducked against Arrow's ruffed neck as they rolled in midair to avoid the missiles.

"Catch!" Arrow called. He tossed the blade, and for one hopeful second, she saw the lion-headed hilt suspended in the air, flashing in the sun. Lucy snatched it, trembling, her heart hammering at her ribcage, and slashed it through the first leather pouch on the harness. Coins fell, glittering.

From the corner of her eye, Lucy saw the gun turret rounding toward them again. "Fly, Arrow, fly!"

Another round of bolts flung past them. Arrow grunted and rushed upward, plastering Lucy against his neck. She risked a look back amid the flying projectiles. The ship's captain was ordering sailors in all directions, and the ship's sails billowed through a turn to port. "It's working!" she cried. "They're following!"

"Then we better get back to _The Phoenix_ first," Arrow panted.

He pumped his wings twice, three times, four, hurtling them through the air until Lucy's eyes teared with the wind. _Goggles,_ she thought absurdly, picturing a World War II bomber in flight gear. Already she saw how poorly designed her heavy, double-layered leather vest and leggings were for flying. Fine ground armor, but in the air, too stiff, too cumbersome, even for leather. No maneuverability, no visibility in sun or wind. Her long hair dragged at the air currents. What a mistake. Cloth would have been better, braids—

 _The Phoenix_ loomed below them. Ed waved them down. Beside him stood Van, with his sai in his belt and a look of sudden alarm on his face as he stared at them.

 _What's wrong?_ Lucy wondered, then Arrow gasped and crumpled in midair. She shrieked as the deck rushed up and she fell away from Arrow's back. She plunged downward and slammed right into Van.

They smashed to the deck and rolled over and over, finally landing in a pile of nets. Lucy came to a stop sprawled out on top of him, straining for breath as he grinned up at her. "Thanks for the soft landing."

His grin shifted to an affronted scowl. _"Soft?"_

Running footsteps echoed along the deck boards. "Are you hurt?" Ed called.

"Fine," Lucy panted. "But we're about to have company."

Ed helped her up, and then Van. She turned, searching for Arrow, and found him lying in a heap at the bow. She ran to him and found his flank a bloody mess. A feathered crossbow bolt protruded from his haunch. She moaned. "Oh, no, Arrow—"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," the griffin said, righting himself where he lay with ginger motions. "Pinches like a demon. It's under the skin but not in muscle. Glanced off my haunch." He arched around and clamped his beak over the shaft. With a grunt and a yank, he pulled the bolt free. He spat the bloody bolt onto the deck. "Thought for a moment I might follow in Rook's wingbeats. What was that thing that fired at us so fast?"

"A gun turret," Lucy said as Edmund and Van approached.

Ed's eyes went wide. "There's why the Witch has been going from world to world. To copy artillery, as well as for funds."

"Hold on," Van murmured, anger flashing in his eyes. "We're drawing Calormene fire. Allies, to Jadis of Charn." He glared at Lucy. " _You're_ flying a griffin like you've done it half your life." Then he turned his scowl on Edmund. "And the dryad was looking at you like she wanted to fall at your feet. Who in Underland are you people?"

"I'll explain all," Edmund said soberly, meeting his first mate's gaze. " _After_ we escape."


	12. The Phoenix In Flight

The ship's surgeon refused to perform his services on a griffin. Van should have left it to Lady Kirke, but she and the captain were deep in plans for fleeing the Calormenes, who were now racing toward them. Sailors everywhere were dumping cargo overboard, spoils that might slow their pursuers. Van should have been helping, but he was skilled at medicine—no thanks to his heritage—and he couldn't leave the creature like that after it had helped Lady Kirke escape the enemy ships.

Van scrambled through his bunk for herbs and bandages, then rushed back to the deck, where the grumbling creature had stood up. It favored its hind leg as Van approached it. The beast eyed him with obvious distrust. "I'm not here to add to your injuries, Feathers." The griffin snarled something in what Van could only assume was Griffish, because he couldn't understand it. "Just hold still," Van ordered, and deftly applied poultice and wrap to the creature's flank. He finished before Arrow had the chance to respond again, or call him names in his shrieky native tongue. "That's all I have time for. We've got three much bigger problems," Van said, turning away.

"Wait," the griffin called.

Van stopped and looked back.

Arrow tested his weight on his leg, head tilted, then looked back at Van. "What can I do?"

Van smiled. "Be our eyes up top."

Arrow nodded and soared up to the rigging.

And then the real trouble began. Whatever a gun turret was, each of the Calormene ships had one of them. Van discovered fast that he might have been happy not learning of gun turrets his whole life. The things pelted crossbow bolts at them as soon as the Calormenes came within range of _The Phoenix_. Cannons fired at them too, but the cannonballs burst against the side of _The Phoenix_ as they always did, frosting over and shattering like broken icicles. Not much help if one reached the deck, though. Then the crew found themselves ducking cannonballs and crossbow bolts as they rained down. In the distance, Van saw the Selbarani turn and fly homeward.

The captain swung up into the shrouds. "Run up every sheet we've got! Make for the Gate! Go, go, go!"

The crew scattered to obey. Sails rose skyward and billowed out. Frigid wind, capricious at best with the Calormene sails, filled the sails of _The Phoenix_ and pushed her onward.

Van leaped onto the port rail to watch their speed. "Come on, old girl, come on," he whispered. Crossbow missiles hissed past him. One fluttered at the tail of his hair.

"Look out!" shouted Lady Kirke. She grabbed his hand and jerked him down as a trio of bolts hissed through the air where his head had been an instant before.

He smiled at her. "Thanks for that."

"Welcome. They're going to fire again. I saw them loading cannons."

"How? The cannons would be belowdecks—"

 _Boom._ Van heard a high-pitched whine overhead. He grabbed Lady Kirke around the waist and spun her out of the way as a smaller cannonball smashed to icy pieces on the deck. She and Van tumbled to their knees behind a coil of rope. He peered over the rail and squinted across the diminishing open water toward the Calormenes. "Hand-held cannons?"

"Probably not the last of it," the lady said, then looked up at him. Even in the midst of a firefight, Van found himself transfixed by her smile. "Thanks for that."

He helped her up and steadied her as she stumbled against his body. "Welcome."

When he looked across the deck, the rain of crossbow bolts made his mouth go dry. One snapped the rope holding a sail aloft, and it fluttered back downward. A sailor tried to rescue it, but another projectile cut him down.

The captain rushed onto the deck and took the fallen sailor's place, hauling the sail back up.

Van raced to his aid and pulled the rope from his hands. "Get down, get down!" he yelled. "If you fall, we're done!"

The captain growled something unintelligible, but didn't leave. Together, they hauled the sail back aloft. Lady Kirke joined them in time to thread another rope through the broken one and make it fast.

"Look ahead! They're going to ram us!" called Arrow.

One of the Calormene ships had managed to cut across their path. "Hard starboard!" Van shouted.

The ship leaned almost flat against the waves. Lady Kirke yelped and fell against him. Van's arms went around her automatically, and they slammed back against the forward mast. He let go with one arm to fling it around the mast as his feet slipped free of the deck. Sailors shouted in alarm and grabbed for the shrouds. For one heart-stopping moment, Van thought they'd be swamped. Lady Kirke held onto his waist, her legs swinging wildly. Van's heartbeat pounded as he spied the Calormene interloper's side cannons. The bow of _The Phoenix_ cleared the Calormene ship's nose. " _Port with all you've got!"_ he screamed.

The ship lurched again, and Lady Kirke cried out and slipped from his waist. Van seized her by the wrist. They dangled like earrings as _The Phoenix_ swung over, skidding around the Calormene ship like a horse running too fast around a curve. Van snarled through his teeth, holding on for all he was worth.

The swing to port flung them free of the mast. Van slammed against a capstan and rolled to his feet, already running. Lady Kirke raced with him to the bow, where the captain stood, drenched in seaspray.

Ahead in the middle of the ocean loomed a mountainous shadow, shrouded in mist.

The Fairies' Gate.

And behind them, gaining, were all three Calormene ships. Crossbow bolts whizzed past them. Two bolts drilled into the deck rail beside Van. "We're not going to make it!" he shouted.

" _Damned_ if we're not," the captain said over the boom of cannon fire. His gaze went to the mainsails as if willing them to gulp wind.

Closer, closer, closer. Van saw the enemy sailors' faces now, leering like hounds on the chase. He looked skyward, to the sun. _Please, if you ever loved a doomed soul ..._

Cool mist caressed his face. Van turned to the Gate in awe, then back to the Calormenes, whose ships were rapidly losing their shape and substance. He beamed at the captain, then hooted loud and long. His voice bounced off the mist. The captain grinned back, and Van turned to Lady Kirke, who stared around them, open-mouthed in wonder, as the mist swallowed them all.

\- # -

Lucy gaped. At first, she saw nothing but endless grey. Van and Ed's laughter reached her through the mist, and then she made out Van's face. He grinned ear to ear. Lucy couldn't help smiling back. They'd made it. Somewhere. They were alive.

She looked to Ed, who smiled at her, then turned to look ahead.

She followed his gaze to find thinning mist. Then, it cleared.

Above them on either side rose sheer, mossy slate cliffs whose tops were lost in fog. _The Phoenix_ drifted along a channel that cut through the rock no more than a ship's breadth from the rails on either side. Down the cliffs hung braids of thick vine, woven like endless knots that went all the way down to the water.

Cut into the cliffs were caverns. Lucy spied more moss edging the openings. A solitary bird called out as it launched itself from one vine into the air. No one followed them; behind lay only a wall of fog.

After a time, the drifting ship slowed, and Lucy realized they were turning. The rock seemed to remold itself, and suddenly she saw a bay-like cavern. _The Phoenix_ turned and approached a dock inside.

Too busy staring at the stunning landscape, Lucy hardly noticed when she, Van, and Edmund debarked and headed down a tunnel whose rock walls glimmered like obsidian. "Where are we going?" she murmured. Her voice echoed off the walls with their footsteps.

They emerged into a high-ceilinged cavern of the same gleaming rock. Bowls of some bluish flame lit the room, at the end of which she saw flashes of light coming from a pair of high seats on a platform.

A throne room.

Edmund led their party to the dais, where he paused to bow his head. "Greetings, my hosts, from one humbled by your sanctuary."

From the left-hand seat rose a tall, wispy creature, too graceful to be called human. She ( _It must be a she,_ Lucy thought, transfixed by the creature's beauty) approached Edmund. From her back spread a pair of wings as shimmery and transparent as slivers of mica. "As we are to provide it, brave one." She turned her gaze to Lucy, who felt a shiver of wonder that Narnia could hold such a lovely thing. The creature looked briefly back to Edmund, encompassing them both with her endlessly blue gaze, as bright as the flames in the bowls. She held out a long, slender arm, and Ed stood straight again. "You are welcome here, Your Majesties," the creature said in a soft, melodious voice. She turned her attention to Van. "And welcome also to you, Lord Vandelar."

Lucy and Van stared at each other. Each spoke at once.

" _Majesties?"_

" _Lord?"_


	13. At The Faeries' Gate

The second Faeling rose from his seat. The king, Van supposed, but he'd never been allowed inside the court before now. All he'd ever known of the Faelings was that they offered safe harbor, and a place to hide the spoils _The Phoenix_ gathered from its voyages.

The king he was concerned with stood calmly before the Fae queen. When Van gave him an accusing glare, the captain returned it with the same unruffled air. Something had changed in his face over the last few seconds. There was the same iron will Van had known as the captain's first mate, but now, it was as if a veil had dropped away. Van saw the weariness, the bravery, the battle scars and odd quiet moments for what they were.

 _What are you doing aboard a ship bearing no flag, Your Majesty?_ he wondered coldly.

He turned his stare on the woman—no Lady Kirke, for certain—and found it twice as difficult to look her in the eye. She radiated that same nobility—no, brighter, as if sunlight favored her even here, in this cavern of the earth.

 _Your Majesties,_ he corrected himself.

"There are no secrets in this court," the Fae king said. "The magic demands we each show our true faces here."

"Perhaps it is time," the Fae queen said to him, "to lay your own secrets aside." She stared at him as if she could look right down to his soul.

Van recoiled and gave Lady Kirke a last look, memorizing her face. Brave, indeed. Beautiful. And untouchable. A royalty he would never be.

She belonged with the captain—a man he would also never be.

The lady took a step toward him. "Van?"

Van turned to the Faelings and gave them a stiff bow, then retreated from the court.

\- # -

"He's going to sell us out," Edmund rumbled, sifting wildly through the contents of the safe in his room.

"He won't," Lucy insisted.

"Missed that look on his face, did you? I'd have sworn him trustworthy."

"How do you know that look was directed at you? The Court of Truth, that's what the Faelings call it. Even here, can you not see the good in him? Edmund," she added gently, "I know why you do it, but sometimes I think you are too willing to mistrust."

That earned her a glare, as she knew it would.

She softened her words with a smile. "You are my brother, and I love you," she reminded him. "But Jadis has blinded you, and she blinds you still. You may see the good in others, but you look first for their deceptions. And the degree of that is always the string by which you measure."

He stayed silent, staring moodily into the half-empty safe.

Lucy studied him. "How long have you sailed with him?"

"As long as I've been captain."

"As long as you've been trying to deceive everyone," she corrected softly. She approached him and knelt before the safe with him, then laid a hand over his to stop his restless motion. "It almost worked, you know. Except for me."

Ed smiled, and she warmed at the affection in his eyes. "Do you know why I named her _The Phoenix_?"

She shook her head.

"Even in the midst of winter, a phoenix can be reborn. Ice doesn't matter. A phoenix still burns. From the inside, where it counts."

Lucy kissed his cheek. "Maybe he carries it inside, too, Edmund." She stood and exited the cabin, leaving her brother to his work.

She found Van at the dock with the ship. The rudder had come loose during their desperate flight, and a number of Faelings had cast a spell to lift the ship from the water for repairs. Van tossed orders high and low, and when she approached, he didn't stop. "I'd like to speak to you," she said.

He said nothing, made no indication of her rank in front of the crew swarming over the damaged ship, but followed where she led. Lucy climbed a flight of stairs that ended abruptly at a stretch of vines. She leaped to the nearest one and climbed it to a small cavern above the bay. Her quarters while she remained here. A courtesy of the Fae queen, with ample views of the ship and her crew—especially to watch over Kamus, who had begun to recover but refused to leave the ship, and Arrow, who perched on the mast beams.

Nalis and Darius had also recovered from their time at sea. By now, the centaurs would be close at Edmund's side. Though they were safe at the Faeries' Gate (for no vessel could enter who was not invited), Lucy felt better that Ed had someone he trusted beside him.

Although she believed he'd already had that, she thought, looking at Van.

Van seemed to realize where they were, and stopped short in the entrance to her quarters with a rare look of discomfort. "It's not a real bedchamber," she said with some amusement.

"It is for now," he said, hanging back.

She turned to a pile of dried grasses and moss that one of the Faelings had arranged for her bedding. They slept in pouches of vine and lichen, curled into balls like butterflies in a chrysalis, Edmund had told her. The notion of sleeping prone on the ground was alien and vulnerable to them—frightful, even—but Lucy smiled at the kindness of their effort to accommodate her. Ed might not mind the vine pouch. Van, either. Reminiscent of a hammock, probably. For her part, Lucy looked forward to stretching out her limbs after the cramped captain's bunk. "You may as well sit."

"No, thanks. Your Majesty." Van's voice rang with scorn.

She knelt in the bedding, studying him. He stood still as sculpture, waiting, watching her with something like curiosity. "I am Lucy Pevensie, Queen of Narnia and Lady of the Eastern Sea," she told him.

Van's bronze eyes gleamed in the dim light under the shadows of his tricorne. He gave a soft snort through his nose. "I sort of guessed the Narnia part." He kicked at a stone she couldn't see. For long minutes, he said nothing, then he rubbed the back of his neck. "You make a fine pair." His lip curled and, with a curt nod, he spun away toward the cavern entrance.

"Vandelar."

He stopped.

She stared at the broad-shouldered lines of his long coat. "That's what she called you, isn't it?"

He swiveled back, stiff and sardonically formal, then swept off his hat with a bow. His eyes and cutting sneer pierced her. Each word fell slow and deliberate from his lips. "Vandelar. Yuricson. Penrith. Ratten. M'Haven. _My lady._ " And he started to turn away again.

"How are you better than me?" she called after him, and was pleased to see he stopped again. "How is it better for you to hide your identity than for me?"

Once again, he pivoted around. He clapped the hat to his chest and gave her another brief bow. "I am not blessed with a monarchy, Your Highness."

"Stop that," she ordered, angry now. "I'm not calling myself any better than you, either. We both earned our bruises today."

"Funny sort of husband you have, letting his lady damage herself like that."

She burst into laughter. " _Edmund?_ Hardly." Unable to control her mirth, she hooted until it echoed off the walls. Van straightened until his sandy, ponytailed head almost brushed the ceiling. Her laughter only seemed to irritate him further.

She reined herself in and tried for a serious face. "I'll be lucky to marry on my deathbed, at this rate."

Van jerked his head toward the bay. "Then who's that?"

"My brother, Van. King Edmund. He might be willing to hand me off, but the eldest of us isn't so giving." She frowned at the look of confusion on Van's face. "Don't you follow politics? The Fae queen said you were a lord."

"Bit busy outrunning other pirates with _your brother_ to pay much attention," Van said with an arched brow.

"All right," she said, patting the cushiony moss beside her. "Sit."

"That an order?"

"Will you just _sit_?" she huffed. He did so at last (but as far from her as he could get, and remain on the makeshift mattress), and Lucy heaved a breath of exasperation. "A lot like having Peter here. You could match him for stubbornness."

"You'd best him, whoever he is," Van shot back.

She laughed again. "High King Peter, the eldest. He was appointed by Aslan."

Van studied her without any trace of recognition of either name. "Aren't you worried you're telling this to a stranger?"

"I'm not giving anything away that isn't publicly known. There are four of us, including Susan, the second eldest. I'm the youngest. Doomed to remain unmarried, if Peter has his way," she added sarcastically.

Van's bronze eyes took on a softer gleam, and he actually smiled. "You ever think he doesn't want to give away his favorite?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Flattery?"

He snorted again. "Just a suggestion, Your Majesty."

"Since we're stuck on names and titles," she added in an acidic tone, "you might consider telling me about yours. What's 'Ratten?' "

He scowled, and Lucy thought he might leave. Finally he shifted his long legs and leaned back against the rock behind her mattress, then jammed his hat back on until she could hardly see his eyes. "Haggish. My great-grandmother. I'm not proud of it."

"Why not?"

He stared at her like she'd just grown another limb. "You ever seen a _male_ hag?"

"No."

Van sneered again. "They trick men. Enslave them with spells. The females are born pure hag. The males are lucky enough to _look_ human. Discarded like refuse." Lucy frowned, aching for him, but when he looked up, anger flashed in his eyes. "Don't play your sympathy on me. My grandfather rose above his dubious beginnings on his own."

"Why keep the name?"

"My father reclaimed it. Thought it might give him immunity from attack by Ettinsmoor. Much good may it do him."

"Your surname?" she prompted.

He crossed his arms and settled back further against the rock. "Man-of-Narrowhaven. He shortened it. Bit easier signing letters begging off attacks, I'd wager."

Lucy considered for a moment. "I think I might turn to piracy, too, after all that." She gave a wry smirk. "At least piracy is honestly dishonest."

Van's laughter echoed off the walls, a pleasant surprise after all his moodiness. Shaking his head, he crossed his legs and leaned forward to prop his arms on them. "What _are_ you, Lucy Pevensie?"

She looked at him, and it warmed her through to see that his smile at close range was as wonderful as she'd thought it would be. She grinned. "Just Lucy."


	14. All The Things That Never Were

Repairs had been underway all day on the ship. While the hull of _The Phoenix_ was impervious to cannon fire (anything aimed at her shattered to ice crystals as it reached her, thanks to the Witch's wand), it did not exempt her from damage in other places. Feathered crossbow bolts had embedded themselves all over the deck like a sparse coat of plumage. Sails were torn, shrouds snapped, rails and deck structures broken by the rain of cannonballs. A crippled bird.

All except the main mast.

Edmund approached the main mast that evening and stopped before it to touch the smooth, weather-polished wood. Dryad elderwood, unbreakable and immune to all but flame. Early in his travels, Edmund had found a pine dryad on the coast of Ettinsmoor, an elderly male taken prisoner of war. Edmund escaped with him in the night and secreted him away, but the old dryad's injuries were too great. He passed away knowing all that Edmund intended to do—the only soul to whom he'd ever confessed everything Aslan had said to him the day he'd been rescued from the White Witch.

And the dryad rewarded him with the gift of this mast, the wood of a dryad elder, the heart of a ship meant secretly to help Narnia's cause. "Thank you," he murmured.

"It _is_ you, then," said a wondering voice.

Edmund whirled around, his hand going automatically to the hilt of a sword that wasn't there. He dared not wear it, as easy as it was to recognize.

Tottering into the dim, bluish light came an old faun with a graying beard and a stained woolen shirt. Even in this light, he looked pale. "I confess, I hadn't believed the story was true," the faun said, "and now I find myself at your very feet."

"Who are you?"

The faun bowed, seeming to take ironic pleasure in the act doubling as an introduction and an obeisance to a Narnian monarch. "I am Faun Kamus. I am a master scribe and storyteller, si—" He cut himself off and grinned. "—Captain."

Edmund glanced around, assuring himself they were alone. Most of the crew had gone to quarters off ship. "You're Lucy's charge, the one who's been ill."

"Her friend, I'd like to think," Kamus said, "though I'm a poor replacement for Tumnus. He wanted to come, but she feared for his health." Kamus sneezed. "My apologies. I might be starting to worry for my own health soon," he added with a chuckle.

"Tumnus," Edmund repeated, thinking of Lucy's best friend for the first time in many months. All of Narnia knew of Lucy's regard for him, and his for her. He smiled. He and Tumnus had gotten off to a rocky start, long ago, but Lucy's affection for them both had warmed each to the other's acquaintance. "What can I do for you, Faun Kamus?"

"Oh, no, no. It's what I might do for you, Captain." Round-eyed and serious, the faun moved closer.

A year of dodging mortal dangers prompted Ed to jerk back—no one touched or approached him without his consent. He staunched the impulse in order to lean down and hear what Kamus had to say.

"My particular station in life does not limit me to Narnian allies, sire," Kamus said quietly. "I have been of late to the Lone Islands, where I met a minotaur with knowledge of Aslan's movements."

The Lion's name flowed from Ed's ears down every nerve in his body, warming him through so much that he realized only now how distant he'd become from anything of home. He ached to hug his brother and Susan. All Peter's anxieties over the years about having his family together and safe and happy suddenly came into sharp clarity. "What did the minotaur say?"

"The Great Lion has arrived in Selbaran," Kamus said. "He pursues the White Witch through the Silverwood. Your lady is in grave peril."

\- # -

Van dreamed restless dreams of a tall, cold-faced woman with a long, icy spear. She drove all fleeing before her in fear. A fox, whom she turned to stone with that spear and without compunction. A faun, shivering and terror-eyed, whom she ordered to capture any human creature that set foot in her country. A small, dark-haired boy. Even Van flinched when he heard the _smack_ of her striking his cheek, but he saw the ferocity with which the boy stared at her once she turned her back.

And then the dreams changed, spinning ever faster through a series of flashes so quick he could hardly make sense of them. He saw three young men—one, that same dark-haired boy, now a bit grown—facing a massive army that they opposed only with a ragtag assortment of creatures. A desperate dragon-headed ship being swallowed by the coils of a giant sea serpent. A dappled horse, racing into battle against the hopeless numbers of an invading army. A young man, prisoner in some dark underground at the mercy of a lady in green. A country adrift without hope, turning to a devious ape because they needed so badly to believe in something.

And then a lion, so huge and golden and terrifying that its face and voice and sweet sun-and-grass scent filled Van's being. "Mind that last, Vandelar of the Sea," the lion said. "Hope cannot live without courage. Seek out your fear and face it."

He started awake in the darkness to a view of luminescent, blue-black rock far overhead. He'd fallen asleep on the deck of _The Phoenix_ , and now he shivered in the chill air. Gathering his legs under him, Van stood and stretched. The pop of his joints echoed like cannon fire in the silence.

The scent of the lion lingered in his nose, as real as if it were still standing beside him. He tried—great landslides, he tried—to ignore it, but the scent reminded him of home, of the fields of Narrowhaven, long ago before he even knew or cared about the flaws of his heritage. And though he hated to admit it (even though they'd been at sea so long, it was undeniable), the sunny-meadow scent reminded him a little of Queen Lucy.

He was still marooned on that thought when a silhouette slipped from the aft deck and hurried to the plank adjoining _The Phoenix_ and its dock. It paused to look around before crossing the board.

Van folded himself quickly into the shadows and followed, crouching among crates of repair supplies. The figure scurried like a shipboard rat. It paused to cast a lingering look upward, first at the rigging where the griffin slept, and then at a cavern above the water. Lucy's. Van's hand sought the reassuring grips of his _sai_ before he realized what he was doing. When the shadow crossed the plank, he followed.

The stealthy creature didn't approach Lucy's cavern. Van, who'd been expecting it to do so, took a breath and tailed the figure as it exited the cavernous dock.

The stars and moon were out. The white brightness almost blinded him after the bluish dim of the Faelings' home. The figure paused in the cavern's mouth, clearly hesitant about leaving the cover of darkness. But with a last glance around, it scuttled off along a narrow dock flanking the walls along the watery Faeries' Gate.

Van followed as silently as possible, hoping his prey was too intent on its goal to look back. It didn't, but then it approached a skiff tied to the end of the dock. Van thought fast, then lowered himself carefully into the lapping water to avoid splashing. He swung under the dock and dangled from a beam underneath, half in the water, to avoid being seen as the figure climbed into the little boat and began to row away.

He waited, shivering, wondering why he hid and why he even cared, except that a body sneaking about clearly had something valuable to hide. When another look confirmed it safe to follow, Van climbed back onto the dock, dripping and rubbing his arms. He stalked to the end of the dock.

No boats. The only vessel that might follow the fugitive wasn't seaworthy. The Faelings had no use for ships. The dock had been built only to receive in- or outbound traffic from the outside world. "Blast," he whispered.

"Not going anywhere without wings, I'm afraid," came a voice from behind and above.

Van whirled around.

Clinging to the sheer rock above him was Arrow, his feathered tail lashing. He angled his head. "Going on a little nighttime reconnaissance, were you?"

"I was following someone."

He thought Arrow would dispute him, but the griffin's wings opened with a windy snap, and he glided down to the dock. "Get on."

"Fly? Not a chance."

"Fly, or let them escape."

Without another thought, Van sucked in his breath and leaped aboard the griffin. His stomach swooped into his boots as the griffin bounded forward once, twice, then shot into the air.


	15. Family Matters

Susan rushed through the halls of Cair Paravel, her hands trembling so hard she could barely hold onto the small, mirrored bowl between them. Castle staff turned to watch her with alarm as she raced past, clearly worrying that something was wrong with her or the babe within her softly rounded belly. With the others gone from the Cair— _Or missing,_ she thought, cursing herself for Edmund's disappearance for the millionth time—the staff had taken to watching her and her unborn child with something like desperation. No one wanted her out of their sight, and Susan, who had never minded staying behind before, began to pine for the fields. She longed to join her family out there in the wild, defending Narnia with more than mere words and laws.

But her place was here. The Cair was Narnia's beating heart. The country's people looked to its white towers and snapping flags for courage during this, of all times. It was a sign that Narnia still stood. To that end, Susan threw herself so doggedly into maintaining the Cair and its day-to-day business that even Saris begged her to slow down.

 _No,_ she had insisted. _This is what Aslan means me to do—to keep our home until everyone has returned to it. Everyone,_ she'd repeated with a hitch in her throat.

A satyr approached her with a frown of concern on his face. "Back to what you're doing," she panted as she went. "I'm fine, I'm fine, just go!" She raced down a flight of stairs so fast that the Dog she passed gave a worried whine. "Stop it, my feet still work perfectly," she snapped.

Now on the main floor, she pelted to the state room and, one-handed, shoved the door open without hesitation.

Behind the desk was Saris in his human form—not sitting, but pacing, with a sheaf of letters in his hands. His gaze landed on the bowl tucked in her arm. His mouth opened, but before he could speak, she banged the mirrored vessel onto the desk. The red soot in the bowl shifted, and the low flame consuming it shivered, then righted itself into a steady burn again. "Tell him, Asha."

Asha's voice floated out of the smoke rising from the bowl, echoing faintly. "It is nothing, Sister. I'm safely guarded. And I am well. That means Edmund is well."

Susan glared at Saris, willing him to take her part. "The White Witch has been seen in Selbaran. Too close to Silverwood, Saris. She's in danger, and Edmund too, if she's caught—wherever he's gone. Tell her."

Saris thought for a long moment. "Have we considered for a moment—forgive me, Asha—that he might be among the Witch's people?"

"He wouldn't!" Susan cried. Her outrage rang through the room.

"I know his heart, Saris," came Asha's voice.

Susan settled. A little. At least on this, she and Asha agreed. "Come to Cair," she said desperately.

"My place right now is with my people, Susan, as yours is at Cair. I cannot risk the fall of Selbaran in my absence, especially if Jadis is here as the reports say. And if she is ... I will fight. I can do no less."

"But Edmund! Silas! At least send Silas to me," Susan pleaded.

Asha's laughter sifted up from the bowl, an odd, carefree counterpoint to Susan's trepidation. "Some things you may never understand about us, good sister. Silas leads the Selbarani dryads in the search for Jadis."

"He's only a boy!"

"By human standards," Asha admitted. "But he has gained his dryad power, and he uses it to search the forests for her while I guard Silverwood." Susan heard the smile in Asha's voice even through her own distress. "I could not keep him from doing his part if I wanted to. He has too much of Edmund in him."

Susan could hardly voice her next words. "H-Have you heard news of Aslan?"

A long pause. "No. But you must believe, Susan, that he will come when it is time. Be well," Asha said, and then the soot snuffed out.

Susan stared at the remnants of smoke curling up toward the buttressed ceiling of the state room. "Saris ..."

He drifted toward her as smoothly as if he were in his Jinn form, and took her hands in his own. "Asha is courageous and cunning, my heart. She would not endanger her son or your brother in any undue way. I am glad of her information, for it means the Witch has not yet accumulated the strength to attack Narnia. Peter and Cori are safe from her, for now."

"And Edmund?" she murmured, fighting through the pain in her heart. "No letters, no word? And Lucy ..." She couldn't say it. The Lion would have made it known if Lucy were gone to his country ... wouldn't he? Tears filled her eyes. What if the Witch sought to eliminate them, one by one, to take Narnia?

Susan struggled past the ache of not knowing her siblings' fates. Jadis would never win. Not while a single heir of Pevensie blood was alive to sit at Cair Paravel. She stroked her belly. With her last breath, she'd see to it their home was preserved.

She owed that to Edmund and Lucy.

Saris raised a warm hand to cup her cheek. "You should rest."

"I will," she said, raising her chin. "When they're all home."

\- # -

Lucy woke early, according to her internal clock. She sat up and stretched, then left the cavern without delay.

She'd always found it useful to be up and about before anyone else stirred. Now was the time to see without being seen, to think without distraction, to plan without interruption.

And she needed to plan.

Now that others knew of Edmund's identity and whereabouts, it would not be long before his alliance with Jadis's army was exposed for the hoax it was. They needed to find the White Witch, or infiltrate her high-ranking officers and learn of her whereabouts before Ed's network of spies faltered. If that happened, she hated to think what sacrifices her brother would have to make. What more could he give, that hadn't been taken from him by duty or disaster?

Whom did her brother trust that could go to Jadis with immunity?

Lucy looked for her brother aboard _The Phoenix_ , which had been returned to the water. Repairs must have been completed late last night.

No Edmund. No Arrow, either. And no Vandelar.

She hurried from the ship to another cavern, this one accompanied by the welcome sight of Darius standing in the opening with a ready spear. She nodded to him and entered. Ed was already up, and donning a heavy leather jerkin. Nalis was strapping swords to his back. "Going somewhere?" she asked.

Edmund finished buckling a pair of leather bracers to his forearms. "Selbaran."

A thrill of fear coursed through Lucy. "You're going to put your whole plan into jeopardy."

"Jadis was seen there. What choice do I have?"

"What about your—" She looked around before continuing. "—people? The gold? Are you just going to let all your work collapse?"

He turned on his heel and glared at her. "Would you have me lose my wife and son too?"

"Think, Edmund, think. No one's seen Jadis, even though her allies are everywhere. How do you know she's there? Who told you?"

"Faun Kamus."

"Kamus," Lucy repeated. Shock and dread washed through her. "Kamus never left the ship. He avoided the Court of Truth."

A scuffle ensued behind her. Lucy spun toward the entrance, her knife already in hand. Behind her, she heard the hiss of a drawn blade, though she'd seen no weapon on Ed's belt.

At the opening of the cavern, Darius stood, tail lashing and spear pointed at Vandelar's chest. Behind Van stood Arrow, rumpled and sweating. Van's gaze met hers. "Kamus has gone to the Witch's people," he panted. His gaze shot to Edmund. "She knows."

Lucy looked to Edmund. In his hand was his sword, Wandbreaker. His face was full of grim distrust as he stared at Vandelar. Then Ed met her eyes, and she saw the barely-restrained panic in his gaze. "Tell me now not to go to my family."

\- # -

Standing in the ship's cabin, Van glared at the captain— _at King Edmund of Narnia_ —with his fists balled. "I am not a spy for the Witch!"

Edmund glanced sidelong at Lucy. Some unspoken conversation passed between them, then Edmund turned back to him from where he sat at the table. "Your family is allied to the Ettin hags, is it not?"

Van felt gut-punched. He shot a dismayed look at Lucy and wished he'd never told her anything about his history. Now it lay out in the open like evidence at a trial, a shame for all to see. "My father pulls at strings without knowing whether the puppet will dance or strangle him," Van snapped. He kicked at the base of the captain's bunk. "Why would I come to you and warn you of a traitor if I wanted to lead you into a trap? You should have taken me back to the Court of Truth if you didn't believe me!"

Lucy rose from her seat with an impossible look of calm on her face. She approached him. Van jerked back a step, still fuming, betrayed. How dared she look so serene when she'd torn his life apart and left it on display?

She stepped closer and laid a hand on his arm as if she hadn't noticed his agitation. "I believe you," she said quietly. "I don't need the Court. I have Arrow's word, and my own eyes."

"And _him_?" Van snarled in Edmund's direction. "I followed him before he knew anything about me. Now that he knows, I'm not good enough?"

"I have not judged you," Edmund said. His tone rang with a chill authority—a man unused to being disrespected. "Sit." When Van didn't, he added, "Unless you're going for mutiny, I'm still your captain."

Van kicked a chair away from the table and dropped into it. Lucy sank back to the seat beside him, much more calmly. "This is not an interrogation, Van." She spoke gently, and he resented it.

Edmund sat back, thumbing a knot in the wood of the table's edge. Finally, he said, "Names make no difference. I am who I was when you signed on. I have been that man for most of my life, barring a few grievous errors which I have been blessed with the chance to rectify." His gaze met Van's, sharp and serious. "You are still my first mate, regardless of heritage. The only one in this room concerned about the status of your pedigree is you."

"Then why do you want to know if I call them allies?"

Edmund tilted his head and studied Van with a discomfiting attentiveness. "Still want to follow me?"

Van lowered his gaze to the table. He felt the captain's gaze still on him, patient and intent. But when he looked up again, it was to Lucy, all long lashes and sun-washed hair and full lips. She watched him with those eyes, those too-kind eyes that seemed to find something important in him where there was nothing. What could she possibly see in someone who had dedicated his life to theft and deception? Who shouldn't even _be_ , if the world had any sense of rightness at all?

And now they wanted him to accept the heritage he'd spent his life denying.

He fumed for another minute, staring at the grain of the table's wood, then raised his eyes to the captain—Edmund. The man's entire posture had altered somehow—a mirror of what Van had seen in the Court of Truth. Or maybe it had always been there, and he'd never noticed because it was easier to accept the story.

But the look in the king's eyes was exactly the same as it had always been.

Just.

Van steeled himself. "What do I have to do?"


	16. Lucy And Van In Silverwood

Lucy stood at the bow of the ship, letting the wind rush through her hair. Maybe it was the sun, or the wind, the snapping canvas or rushing waves. Maybe it was that they made for Selbaran, where he'd last been seen—but she hadn't felt so close to Aslan since his last visit to Cair Paravel. Too long ago.

Van stood on the bowsprit, with one hand on a rope and the other holding a telescope to his eye.

Or maybe, in the Lion's absence, she had learned to see a part of him in everything.

She sought Edmund at the ship's wheel. He caught her eye and smiled, and that, more than anything, reassured her she was on the right path. It felt good to see her brother smile again.

"Land ho!" called the lookout.

She had never been to Selbaran—never thought much on its existence before Asha came to Narnia, really. So it came as a complete surprise to see that they were docking, not at a normal seaport, but a cove devoid of anything except forest, beach, and a crumbling rock pier.

She, Van, and Edmund took a longboat to shore. The official report was that they were to recover a stash of buried treasure. They had left Nalis, Darius, and Arrow with the ship, along with a few higher-ranking crew that Ed trusted well enough to maintain order in his absence. Pirates might be untrustworthy as a whole, he said, but where there were riches to be gained, the lot of them could be counted on to follow whomever gained them the greatest. And _The Phoenix_ had not earned status as one of the most feared ships in the sea for nothing.

Van's brows rose, and he eyed Edmund. "How long did you have to plan all this?"

"A couple of months to secure a brigantine and make my contacts," Edmund said. Van kept staring. With a pointed look, Edmund added, "Natures are the same from monarch to manservant and horse to hag. They like security, Van. Work can be bought. True loyalty has no price."

"And how do you know someone won't come along and spirit away your crew to richer waters?"

"I take that chance each day. So far, it's ..." He stopped speaking as the boat approached the shore, and sat bolt upright.

Only then did Lucy notice the flutter of something coming down the pier on the breeze. "What the ..." Van said.

By the time the boat bumped the rock, Edmund was already out of it and running. The look on his face said everything. Tears stung Lucy's eyes as the shape melded into a human form.

Van leaped out of the boat. His sai materialized in his hands.

She climbed out and laid a hand on his arm, finding it tense with agitation. "It's all right," she said. A tear trickled down her cheek as she watched the shape solidify into Asha. Edmund slammed against her a second later, and their arms went around each other. Her brother kissed Asha fervently, then hugged her close again. Lucy clasped a hand over her heart, smiling, glad she was too far away to hear as Edmund whispered into his wife's ear. He kissed her again, so passionately that Lucy blushed just watching them.

"Knows her, then," Van said in a deadpan tone. He flipped open his coat and stowed his sai back in their sheaths.

Lucy shot him a glance of amusement, then secured the boat to an outcrop of rock. "We should go," she said.

"How did she know he was coming?"

"What the trees know, she knows. Asha's the queen of the Selbarani dryads."

Van scanned the trees with an expression somewhere between fascination and discomfort. "What in Underland have I gotten myself into?" he muttered.

"Come," Lucy whispered, tugging at his sleeve.

With a last look at Edmund and Asha, Van followed her along the curve of the shore and into the forest.

\- # -

Lucy hoped Edmund was right. She and Van were tasked with seeking out the White Witch's people, while Edmund gathered information on Selbarani troops from Asha. For the first hour, Lucy and Van met with nothing but birdsong.

"I'm surprised you talked Arrow into flying you," she said, picking her away around a cluster of rocks bordering a stream where they'd stopped for water.

"He's not as intimidating as he'd like to think," Van rumbled.

She grinned. "Really? He was talking for a while about dropping you into the ocean. Know what a fall from that height into water is like? Like hitting solid rock."

Van glared at her. "He could try, but I'd take half his feathers with me."

She chuckled. Van might bluster about Arrow, but she knew a healthy respect when she saw it.

They traveled on through the forest. They spoke mostly in hand signals, wary of enemy movements. When they emerged from the lush greenery to a clearing whose center bore a spot of blackened earth, Lucy began to creep out into open to explore it.

Van snatched her by her tunic and yanked her back. "Me first," he growled.

"I have every right—"

"Your brother charged me with protecting you. I may not be much, Your Highness, but I keep my word once I'm fool enough to give it." He swept a hand up his opposite sleeve and withdrew a wicked throwing knife.

As he brushed past her into the clearing, Lucy stared after the sway of his long coat and wondered just when he'd had the opportunity to give his word to Edmund about anything to do with her. His cuffed boots left no marks in the already-trampled grass as he circuited the clearing. Finally, he crouched at the dead campfire and lifted a stick of burnt kindling to his nose. When he saw her looking, he angled his head to beckon her out of cover.

She went to him and knelt beside him at the patch of soot. "What are you looking for?"

"Still warm. Traces of sulphur and sage. This wasn't just for warmth. They were using it for spells." He held the kindling out.

The whiff of sulphur gagged her. "What do you know of magic?"

"More than I want to," he admitted. "I started looking into magic theory when I learned about my—What does your brother call it? Pedigree?" He threw the kindling down. "I can't call on it myself, but I know enough of Haggish spellwork to recognize a containment curse when I see one." He stood and looked skyward, then turned in a circle. "Where are we?"

The urgency in his voice stirred her nerves. "Silverwood, the forest surrounding Silverwood Castle. Asha's home, and the seat of Selbaran. Van, what are they doing with this?"

He pulled her to her feet. "Let's hope they haven't completed the circle. Once they do, no one will be allowed to leave it. The Selbarani will be trapped here, useless to your cause ... and us, too. All she'd need to do is pick us off like penned-in sheep."

 _She, meaning Jadis,_ Lucy thought. She rushed with him out of the clearing, following a trail of flattened grass that she now saw as the spoor of a traveling party. At least a half dozen, she estimated, and not troubling themselves to hide, based on the prints she could discern and the amount of damage to the underbrush.

Kamus had set the perfect trap. Lure them to Selbaran with news of Asha's peril, and keep them there. Lucy stumbled over tree roots, staying upright only because of Van's grasp of her hand. "Can the circle be broken once it's complete?" she panted.

"No. Not by any means of mine. We need to stop them, or we, Edmund, and his leddy are done."

A terrifying thought flashed through Lucy's mind. The longer they followed the enemy trail, the more likely the idea seemed, and fear began to curdle in Lucy's stomach. "This is the way to the castle. They would know by now that Asha must use the Well of Opals. Van, they might be heading there to poison it."

Still running, Van released her hand to toss the knife back to her. She caught it in mid-stride and veered off to the other side of the still-fresh trail.

Van reached inside his coat to wrest his sai from their sheaths. "Then we get there first."


	17. Frost Heart

Asha sat in a nest of blankets on the floor of her chamber. She had long ago replaced the bed that had once been there with a thick mat. A dryad preferred to sleep close to the ground. Her husband might have wanted more comfort, but there had been blissfully little time for words. Yet.

Edmund stood at her writing desk, shirtless, running his fingers over a vine-carved box containing his many letters to her over the years. "Yours are probably still in my box at home," he said softly.

She stood, and as she did so, her dress formed around her. She approached him and laid a light kiss on his shoulder, regretting already that they must return to the business of war.

He turned around in her arms, with the same regret in his chestnut-bark eyes. She reached up and touched a finger to the graying hair at his temples. "The wand is changing you," she murmured.

He drew her fingers to his lips. "Not so much."

She traced the knife scar on his belly. He gave a soft chuckle and flashed a boyish smile at the ticklish touch. She gave a brief answering smile, then frowned as she touched the stab scar on the other side of his stomach. The scar felt cool, nothing like the warmth of the rest of him. She wondered if it would always plague him—he complained of it in private sometimes, paining him—but he said nothing now. "I wish desperately that you could get rid of it," she breathed.

"If the wand turns my whole body stark white and ice cold, I'll bear it, as long as I have the cursed thing and she doesn't." He cupped her cheek, and Asha savored the touch like tree roots drinking deep from fertile earth. She met his gaze, willing him back to the pallet of blankets with her eyes, needing more time with him.

His eyes softened and he rested his forehead against hers. "I have to go," he murmured, apology in his voice. "We have too much to do." He took her hands and brought them to his lips for a lingering kiss.

"She's not even here, and she strikes at me," Asha said mournfully.

Edmund pulled her arms around him. "She's closer than she ought to be. And if Kamus was telling the truth, Aslan isn't far behind. If we're to help him, we need to turn our energies to—" He grinned and kissed her again, fiercely. "—less important things."

She sensed as much as saw the mischievous spark in his heart, and reveled in it. The pain of losing their daughter lingered, but instead of consuming him as it had for months, it now fueled that oaken resolve she had always known of him. That Jadis had never broken him still amazed her. She wondered if anything could.

He grinned wider and stroked her cheek again. "I love you, too." He retrieved his shirt, tossed heedlessly over a wooden bench, and pulled it on.

Someone banged on the door. In one move, Ed thrust her behind him, scooped up his sword where it had rested on the writing desk, then ripped it from its scabbard and tore open the door.

As soon as he saw their visitor, he lowered the sword. In the doorway stood a miniature version of Edmund, a boy who looked twice as old as the few years he really was. Already, Silas was half Edmund's height.

Silas's eyes went from frightened to round as saucers. He searched for Asha, and the relief when he found her was evident. "I s-saw a ship. I saw _The Phoenix_." He looked back to Edmund, gaping. "Father ... ?"

Edmund stared. The longing on his face and in his heart pulled at her. "You're ... huge."

Asha smiled and stepped around Edmund to beckon Silas farther into the room. "Dryad children grow fast," she said. "You should see him travel."

Edmund didn't even have the chance to respond. Silas threw himself at Edmund, who grunted and staggered back. His sword thumped to the blankets on the floor, and with a desperate gasp, he crushed Silas against him in a ferocious hug.

Teary-eyed, Asha slipped out of the room to let father and son have their time together. Talk of war and battle provisions and reinforcements could wait a few more minutes.

She sagged against the wall and wrapped her arms around herself. She'd been granted precious little time with Edmund. She wanted to be selfish with it, wanted to spend it all secreted away somewhere with him, not talking. But Selbaran, Narnia, indeed the whole world, could not afford her selfishness.

How much had they sacrificed to their countries? She thought longingly of their days in Ettinsmoor, when she and Edmund had first met. The only time she had ever had him to herself ... and she hadn't known until much later what a gift that was. They belonged as much to Selbaran and Narnia as they did to one another, whether they liked it or not.

With a sigh, she gathered her strength and made for the old armory, where she'd locked all her records on the movements of Jadis and her allies. The armory was housed outside the castle proper, beside a barracks that had been built to house the humans of Selbaran's army during her parents' time and in her own youth. Back when humans ruled here, and when dryads were kept prisoner in their own forests.

Asha had ended that when she claimed the throne. Her people needed her, as Narnia needed Edmund. _I go where you will, Aslan._

She hurried down the halls and outside, grateful that she met with no servants on her circuitous route. She produced the sole key (the reason she'd chosen this place—most of the keys, and even the desire to approach the armory at all had been destroyed in the rebellion) and entered the old building. Dust tickled her nose as she turned down a hall. Then she heard a light, clipping step behind her, almost in time with her own footsteps.

Warning flashed through her. She spun around, beginning to transform into a shower of leaves as she turned, but even as she did so, the sound of a flute reached her ears.

A faun stood in the passageway behind her, with the flute to his lips. A man and an enormous ogre flanked him. The flute's music swelled, tugged at her, pulling her will to change apart thread by thread. _Too late, too late, I should have scented them ..._ Asha's consciousness faltered, and she slammed to the floor with sparks of pain, unable to move.

"Take her, and let's go," grunted the man in an accent Asha had never heard. "The weasel will surface quick enough, once he finds his mate missing. Then we'll hear his allegiance from his own lips."

The ogre hesitated, scratched his bald head. "Then what?"

The man approached her and crouched over her, angling his head as if to study her with icy, pale eyes. "The youngest will be with him, yes? We shall have both at once." He angled his head the other way, and smiled such an awful smile that Asha prayed Edmund would sense her terror. "And then there were two."


	18. Battle In Selbaran

Lucy and Van burst into the clearing of the Well of Opals ... except it wasn't there. Where a wide, shallow pool should have been, there was only a dry bed of white rock and a flurry of hag footprints. And Van understood at once. Not poison at all. "They've drained it. They mean to starve the dryads of their magic, weaken them. Easier targets."

Lucy wrung her hands. "They'll still be closing the circle, won't they?"

"Follow me," he said, and rushed on, tracking the prints.

As they ran, he faltered. More prints joined the first set, some tiny, some larger than a man's. And then a giant cloven hoofprint that could only belong to a minotaur. Farther on, a set of horse hoofprints merged with the rest. Heavily pressed, probably carrying a large rider or heavy load. "There are too many for just us to fight," he murmured when they paused to study the melee of tracks criss-crossing the flattened underbrush.

"They just keep arriving," Lucy whispered, gesturing to another set of prints. "As if they are on the march." She studied the trail. "But they look like they're headed away from the castle."

"Toward the water," Van muttered, looking to the sky to gauge their distance from the ocean. Selbaran was an island. _The Phoenix_ had anchored on the south end. The column they tracked was heading northwest. "They got what they wanted," he realized. He hoped grimly that didn't mean they'd closed the circle, but he'd find out soon enough.

A shriek of outrage came from the woods. Van darted to Lucy's side with his sai raised, only to see a rush of yellowing beech leaves streak past through the clearing. Clouds of oak, aspen, and larch leaves followed it. Dryads.

Lucy plunged into the forest after them.

"Hey!" Van shouted, completely forgetting the need for stealth.

"Come on!" her voice echoed.

He hurtled into the trees, listening for the sound of her footsteps. Nothing. He opened his mouth to shout her name, but bit down just before the word "Lucy" came out. Announcing her presence would only get her killed, and him along with her. "Leddy!"

"Here!" she called, but her voice seemed to come from everywhere, bouncing off the trees.

Van raced on, following the war party's trail and hoping she had done the same. His heartbeat hammered against his ribs as he ran. _Madwoman!_ he thought furiously, even as images of her getting stabbed, beaten, or strangled flew through his head.

The sounds of combat reached him, and an instant later, he burst onto the war party. Without hesitation he slammed his sai through the first creature that came at him with a blade. The boggle crumpled at his feet. He ripped his weapons free, then ducked a blast of light from a wraith's clawed hand. "Where the hell are you?" he shouted.

Leaves rushed around him. A second later, the wraith's second attack was cut short in a painful shriek. Dryads filled the clearing, fighting hags, wraiths, efreets. Van couldn't help but stare as flashes of light and choking powder warred with vines filling the space, hampering the enemies' attacks.

Then he saw the horse. A man sat in the saddle, and over his lap lay a limp figure with long, pale hair and a shimmery dress.

Edmund's woman.

Van charged the horse, but a huge brown minotaur blocked his path. Van gasped and just missed losing his head to an ax swing. He dropped to one knee and thrust his sai into the creature's thigh. The minotaur's bellow of pain deafened him. Van smelled the sharp iron-scent of blood, and the hag in him howled with savage glee. He stuffed it into its box. _Concentrate. Lucy._

The minotaur attacked again. Van rolled away from another ax swing and stuffed the handle of one sai between his teeth to draw a four-pointed throwing star from its pouch on his boot. He whipped it through the air toward the minotaur, and it struck the creature on its broad brow. Van snarled as blood poured down the minotaur's face, blinding it. _Was going for the eyes, but I'll take it._ He rushed the beast and finished it with a strike of his sai through its unprotected throat. "Leddy!"

Galloping hooves tore his attention away from the woods.

The horse slammed into him, and with a strangled _whoof_ , he tumbled to the ground. The animal danced toward him, hooves flashing, its rider no doubt intending to trample him. Van hissed through his teeth, a perfect imitation of a hag's serpentlike attack rattle. The horse's eyes rolled and it tossed its head, resisting its rider. Van hissed again and the horse reared, throwing its rider and Edmund's lady into the leaf litter. He snarled at the horse until it plummeted away into the woods in terror, then pounced on the rider.

The man swung around with a shining saber in his hand. Van leaped back. The tip of the thin blade sliced over the front of his coat. He met the next swing with an upward scoop of his sai, then twisted the weapon and snapped the blade. The man dropped the broken saber with fury in his icy blue eyes, then pulled a knife from his belt. Van wasn't quick enough—the man jammed the weapon right into Van's belly, and twisted.

Agony blasted through him. Van screamed and his legs buckled. Dimly, he heard a shout and saw leaves rushing every which way through the air. The man kicked him away. He dropped to the ground, gasping as the man stepped over him to finish him off.

A knife whizzed through the air and into the man's throat. Van's attacker wheeled and collapsed with a dull thud. Van rolled to his back, his vision blurring and his belly aflame with pain.

Clouds of brown hair blocked the light, and he fixed on agate-blue eyes.

Lucy.

Even through his pain, relief and admiration flushed through him.

She cupped his jaw, opening it, then tipped something toward his mouth. "Drink this." He resisted, and she glared at him. "Fool, drink it! Do you _want_ to die?" The words echoed in his head even as she tipped a drop of something hot onto his tongue.

And the pain ceased.

He gaped at her. As she corked her vial and tucked it away, he jerked his torn, bloody shirt up. The only marks on his belly, under the smears of blood, were scars that had been there for years. He gaped at her again.

The gleam of metal sliced toward them from the corner of his eye. She dropped flat on top of him, pushing him down as a nasty-looking studded club whooshed over their bodies. So fast he hardly saw it, Lucy rolled and punched with her feet at the ogre towering over them. She caught him in the knees. The creature growled and teetered back, forward, back, and then forward to land on its face in the grass. Lucy stabbed it in the back of the neck with another knife from Underland knew where. The ogre twitched and lay still.

Van gaped some more. "Where did you learn to ... ?"

"Get up!" she shouted. "The hags are still closing the circle!" She dragged him upright, already running. The dryads had surrounded the enemy troops and subdued them. One bent to help Edmund's lady. Van bolted after Lucy, still stunned.

Maybe they were both mad.


	19. Madwomen And Fools

"That man back there—that was a Nazi!" Lucy panted as she and Van raced through the forest. She shuddered as she ran, remembering the man's uniform.

"What's a Nazi?" Van asked, racing along beside her.

"Evil men. Very evil, from my own world," she called. "They must be here to help the Witch."

"Where _are_ you from?"

"England. Finchley."

"No idea what you're talking about," he said, dodging a low branch.

"How do we stop the hags closing the circle?"

"Sticking sharp objects in them's got my vote," he growled.

No sooner did Lucy smell sage and smoke than she and Van broke into another clearing. Four hags surrounded a fire. One gave a long hiss and dropped a yellow powder into the flames. The fire leaped and turned bluish for an instant. The hag opened her beaky mouth.

Before she could start an incantation, Van charged across the clearing with his sai raised. Lucy saw the danger right away—he'd be surrounded—but he launched himself at the hag with such furious abandon that she worried he'd lost all sense to rage. "Van!" she shouted, as much to warn him as to get the other hags' attention.

It worked. Two of the hags came toward her, and Lucy realized the only weapon she had—near-useless against magic—was her cordial dagger. She ducked a blast of bright light thrown by one hag, and scrambled behind a woodpile hastily stacked for the fire. With her heartbeat thundering, Lucy wrenched her dagger from its pouch. As soon as the first hag rounded the woodpile, she jammed her blade into it. The hag's shriek of pain deafened her, and it dropped on top of the woodpile.

Something fell from her belt and thumped to the tread-matted grass. Her cordial bottle—never resecured in its case after she'd hastily used it on Van. With a gasp, she grabbed at it, but the second hag appeared, and Lucy dodged away a split second before another white flash blasted the woodpile apart.

Lucy snatched a thin log and hurled it, broken point first, toward the second hag's face. The creature bounded back with a rattling hiss, its razor beak open wide, then it attacked again. She dodged another burst of light. Another. Another. No way could she keep this up.

Then she saw a glimmer under the scattered woodpile. Her diamond cordial bottle.

The front side of which bore a stylized etching of a sunrise over mountains.

The back side of which was plain diamond.

The voice of her tutor, a dry old dwarf named Burrgin, reached across a couple of decades, expounding on the properties of different stones. _Some clear stones refract light,_ he droned. _Diamond does it best._

 _Oh, Aslan. How good's my aim?_

Breathless with fear, she scrambled for the woodpile. The hag hissed again. Shaking, Lucy thrust a hand under the tumbledown woodpile and closed it over the etched face of the cordial bottle.

In the same instant the hag threw another burst of light, Lucy spun around with the bottle's diamond face raised toward the attack.

 _Slam._ The surge of light smashed against the bottle and burst into rainbows that filled the clearing. The hag gave an awful shriek and cowered away. Lucy's hand burned as though she'd stuck it into a fire. She cried out in pain as the force of the blast slammed her onto her back on top of the woodpile.

Gasping for air, she heard another shriek, cut short, and then Van appeared over her, panting. He was covered in greenish-black blood and soot. The last thing she saw was the alarm in his wide bronze eyes.

\- # -

When Lucy opened her eyes again, it was to near-darkness. The candlelit face over her resolved into Edmund, his face drawn with worry. Her right hand felt like it was on fire. She gave a soft groan of pain and tried to rise.

"No," he said, pressing her back down. She lay on a thick, soft mattress, on what she realized was a stone floor.

Hurried footsteps pattered across the floor. Asha appeared, and then a boy who looked so much like Edmund there could be no doubt it was Silas. Asha yelped in relief and pushed Ed aside to crouch down and snatch Lucy into a hug.

Forgetting her pain for a moment, Lucy returned the embrace with equal feeling. "I'm so glad to see you."

"And you," Asha said, kissing her cheek. "Thank you." She kissed Lucy's cheek again. "We drove them from Selbaran."

"But Aslan? The Well of Opals?" Lucy wondered.

Edmund ducked around Asha again. "It can wait. Rest, Lu." Her urged her to lie down once more. Lucy's senses swam and she passed out again, wondering where Van was.

\- #-

She woke at last to evening sun slanting through a window in her chamber. A fine, wine-red dress lay over the chair beside her mattress. Lucy sat up for a closer look at the shimmery fabric. Dryad-spun, no doubt, she thought, recognizing the simple slip-on cut and beautiful cloth. Lovely. So much nicer than the difficult ties and restricting buckles of Archenland-influenced Narnian court wear.

She reached for the garment, then she saw her bandaged right hand. It no longer pained her, but it throbbed like a healing injury. Cautiously unwrapping it, she saw the reddish burn scar etched into her palm: a sunrise over mountains, and above that, the backward imprint of her initials, LP. With a soft, surprised exhale, she touched the ridges of the sunrise.

She had always used the cordial to save the lives of others, never imagining it might save her, too.

A worried search revealed her belt hooked over the back of the chair, with dagger and undamaged cordial bottle both secured within. Grateful, she changed into the dress and matching slippers, then took the belt with her as she left the room.

Music reached her ears. She followed the sound to a large hall. Strings and wind instruments swelled in a lively tune. Dryads danced gracefully in pairs or groups, or surveyed a table laden with bowls of what looked like soil. A pile of fruits, breads, and meat lay at one end, presumably for non-dryad guests. Lucy's stomach growled, and she realized how hungry she was.

At the end of the hall stood a throne that looked much like a tree that had grown into the shape of a tall-backed seat. Asha sat there. On either side, seated in similar chairs, were Edmund and Silas. Lucy stepped into the room.

A hand snatched her arm and yanked her aside. She barely had time for a surprised gasp as a pair of gleaming, angry bronze eyes met hers. "You're trying to kill me by scaring me to death, is that it?" Van barked.

Her thrumming heartbeat lost none of its momentum. He had cleaned up, and now wore a dark-blue vest, white linen shirt, and black leggings. Tucked into, she noticed with a smile, his usual battered boots. "I'd rather scare you than we both be dead," she shot back.

He lifted her arm, raising the cordial belt still in her hand. The lion-headed bottle flashed in the afternoon light coming through the stained-glass windows of the hall. "What. Is. This?"

"A gift. It heals."

Van let her arm go, then looked from the belt to his belly. His eyes came back to her. "You're a force all your own, leddy," he said with a softness that shocked her.

Not sure what to do with that tone (he'd never said anything in much less than a growl before), she took a faltering step toward the buffet.

He pulled her back, then drew the belt from her grasp and handed it to a dryad moving through the crowd with a tray. "Bring that to the queen," he said. "Tell her the leddy's chosen to take a stroll in the yard."

"Yes, m'lord," said the dryad, and whisked it away.

Van eyed her again, with something like amusement on his face. " _Other_ queen." He towed her out of the room.

"What are you doing?" Lucy demanded, trying to pull her hand out of his even as they emerged into an enormous courtyard, dominated by a fountain in the shape of a stylized tree. The music, softer out here, seemed to float on the cool breeze.

Van tugged her to the stone-paved square surrounding the fountain. "I'll dance, but I ain't doing it in front of your brother." He put a hand on her waist, and Lucy, too surprised to do anything else, let him lead her.

Around they went in slow circles, more graceful than she would have thought him capable. Lucy's thoughts ran in circles, too. "Why the sudden determination to be ... a gentleman?"

"You're a royal," he said. "Imagine you've got a blasted lot of suitors lined up for you after this war business is over." He grinned. "Won't be much chance for this when that happens. Enjoy it while I'm offering."

Lucy opened her mouth to ask him how many suitors he thought she might have, with two older brothers glowering over her shoulders—but the way he stared at her made her snap her mouth shut again.

The music slowed, and something strange flickered through his expression. A moment later, she noticed they'd stopped dancing. He still held her left hand, and his other still rested on her waist. His gaze roamed her face, and he ducked his head toward her.

Startled, she froze.

He hesitated. That look again, from her eyes to her mouth and back. Then he moved closer, and with surprising gentleness, he pressed his mouth against hers.

The kiss flowed through her with the warmth of wine, and she leaned against him to welcome it. She'd never cared very much about suitors before.

Until now.


	20. Van Casts His Lot

The celebration lasted well into the night. A party had been sent to _The Phoenix_ with provisions once Van and Lucy returned with Asha and the dryads to the castle. Van had asked to go, but amid all the sudden well-wishes of the Selbarani people, he found no time to get away with the rest of the supply party. His discomfort only got worse as the post-victory celebration went on.

 _Congratulations!_

 _Hail, Vandelar, Defender of Selbaran!_

 _Many thanks, my lord!_

The glad tidings turned his stomach, even as he hunted up a smile for Lucy when he returned her to the hall after their dance—and the kiss he shouldn't have given her. He welcomed the praise paid to her. She had certainly earned it (and now had the scar to show it), but who was he to deserve such commendation?

Edmund found him toward the end of the celebration, and pulled him aside into a quiet room. The solemn look in the man's eyes was one Van had seen often, but not quite so potently. "I want to thank you," Edmund said.

Van curled his lip. "You, too?"

"This isn't fanfare," Edmund interrupted. He met Van's gaze, and the look on his face was man-to-man and warrior to warrior. Van got the feeling his captain knew more in one look about a person than some learned in a lifetime of acquaintance. "Thank you," Edmund said again, quieter. "For my wife and sister. I know you wanted no part in this."

Itchy with awkwardness, Van shrugged. He valued Edmund's word more than he'd ever done with any other, but he didn't want to hang around and hear more about his good deed, especially after taking liberties by kissing the sister in question. He expected Edmund's good opinion wouldn't last long after he learned about that. Van muttered something about a first mate's duty and tried to make his escape.

"I'm not finished," Edmund said as Van reached the door. The captain's tone rang with an authority that froze Van, unwilling, to the spot where he stood. Van inhaled a long, bracing breath and turned around to face him.

Edmund's expression had changed—something subtle, but it was enough to indicate they were speaking on different terms now. Guilt pricked at Van as he returned to his place.

"I am your captain," Edmund reminded him, "but a king and brother first."

Van just managed not to flinch.

"I had to know to what extent I could trust you. That's why we came here and confronted the Witch's people openly. A dangerous call, but I had allies to watch you, had I needed them."

The dryads of Selbaran, of course. Van wrestled with a jolt of outrage to which he had no right. He was a pirate, and had been for years. Pirates lied all the time. Of course Edmund would test him.

"Now that Kamus knows my allegiance and whereabouts, he'll tell the Witch—if he can find her. The time has come where I can no longer conceal myself behind subterfuge. I'm going to be a target. She'll attack with everything she has, and without cease."

Van frowned. Certainly she would want to dispose of an enemy, but Edmund talked as if the Witch had particular reason to hate him.

Then he remembered his dream when they'd docked at the Faeries' Gate. A boy, small and dark-haired, with a fierce courage only beginning to surface under the glare of a tall, cold-faced woman. The woman bore a long, gleaming spear of ice.

And then a flash came to him—a premonition driven by his Haggish blood. The man before him, with the same eyes as that boy—now screaming with rage and raising that spear to strike in deadly earnest.

Van gave a little shake to clear his head. Still scrambling to understand the vision, he found himself staring as Edmund went on. "I almost wish I couldn't have trusted you," his captain said. "I would have run you through myself, if you'd harmed my family. But I now find myself in a difficult position."

"Oh?" Van said dryly.

Edmund nodded. "Rather than killing a known enemy, I must now risk losing one of my best men. I'm giving you a choice. You may take _The Phoenix_ and roam the seas at your will. I will neither stop you nor hunt you, as long as you leave Narnia and its allies be. Or you can join me, in truth and in the open, and likely be killed in battle if you fight beside me." His eyes lit with a touch of humor. "The only thing I can promise you then is a burial with all the honor that's due the likes of you and me." He raised his forearm in offering.

Van stared a little more, unable to fathom the paradox of the man before him. Then he gave a slow, disbelieving smile. "You're right out of your mind, Captain. King. Whatever you are." He clasped Edmund's forearm. "Since we're about to plan suicide, you might tell me how I ought to address you _this_ time."

The man grinned, broad and wily. He clapped Van's shoulder. "Sounds like a good time to start calling me Ed."

\- # -

Two mornings later, Van found Arrow sitting on the shoreline of the cove where _The Phoenix_ had moored. The crew had completed provisioning the ship, and Arrow sunned himself amid bits of leather, buckle, rope, thread, needles, and cloth on the beach. Puzzled, Van gestured to the flotsam. "What's all—"

Lucy came around from the griffin's other side, wearing clothing so snug it was impossible not to stare. Van's breath whuffed out of him and he spun away to examine the sky. "What in hell are you ... not ... wearing, woman!"

"It's a flight suit," she said behind him, sounding put out.

Van meant to look up until the sky fell on top of him, right up until he heard the griffin's low laughter. He jerked back around.

The griffin eyed him in what could only be called a mocking look. Beside him, Lucy faced Van, hands on hips, with her slender legs sheathed in shimmery, wine-red fabric. She wore a shirt of the same close-fitting cloth, over which lay a short, thin brown leather jerkin that would block absolutely no blows. Van noticed her cordial belt tied around her waist, and a pair of short brown boots lacking cuffs ... but his eyes went right back to her legs. He'd seen her in pants. Men's pants. Pirate ones, loose and roomy and heavy and certainly _not_ prone to giving away how far away she was from being male.

She had braided her hair, too, a style pinned close to her head. She raised a hand to either side of her brow and frowned. "Ed, I couldn't find anything to replicate the goggles," she called.

Heavy footfalls brought Van's attention to Edmund, emerging from the forest near the edge of the beach, and carrying a load of leather and straps in his arms. "Your harness is done. Asha made it as lightweight as possible." When he reached Lucy, Arrow stood and gave him an expectant look.

Van watched Edmund fasten the "harness" to the griffin. It was little more than a series of leather straps that secured to Arrow's back what might have been a saddle, if there had been any actual substance to it. "That weighs nothing," Arrow said. "I could carry three of her, and a man besides."

"That's the object," Ed said, clapping the beast's shoulder. He scooped up the remaining clutter and stuffed it into a rucksack which he slung over his shoulder.

"You're going to let her sit on _that_?" Van sputtered.

"Not sit," Lucy said, showing him a pair of triangular wooden bits hanging from either side of the saddle. The stirrups were laced impractically high for anyone, let alone her long—and too-visible—legs. "More like a perch," she added.

"The harness has a holster for a crossbow and bolts," Edmund said, checking the fit all around. He looked completely unconcerned about Lucy's lack of meaningful attire.

"What, exactly, are we going to do with all this?" demanded Van.

Ed straightened up. The urgency in his expression drove any concerns about harnesses and clothing out of Van's head. "I got the news this morning. The Witch is moving her ships to invade Narnia by sea. We've got to get there first."

Van stiffened. "Wait. You _want_ us— _one ship_ —to attack the Witch's fleet? Assuming we even get there in time?"

"We have an advantage," Edmund added. "There's a dead spot in the ocean where her power over Narnia ends. No wind, Van. No waves. _The Phoenix_ will blow right past her ships and dispatch them as she pleases while they sit still."

"Unless another of her ships decides to blow us into kindling while we're occupied," said Van.

This exchange was interrupted by the appearance, in the cove, of two tall ships of Selbarani design. "Don't worry," Edmund said with a grin. "We're bringing friends to the fight."

Van stared from Edmund to his sister, then at the Selbarani ships, _The Phoenix_ , and the longboat waiting at the pier. "You're mad."

"Well," Lucy said, climbing onto the griffin's back, "what are we waiting for?" She beamed at Van, then she and Arrow shot off into the sky.

Ed raised an eyebrow, gave Van a look of amusement, and started for the longboat.

Van looked at the sky one last time. Arrow reached the ship and landed on its deck. Lucy dismounted as the centaurs approached her and bowed. Van groaned and started toward the pier. "Oh, we're going to die."


	21. No Hope Without Courage

_The Phoenix_ was almost ready to go. Van wasn't even close.

Too many questions rattled around in his brain. Was he wrong? Had he made a terrible mistake? Edmund was the best captain he'd ever had, but was he really ready to follow another man into the hellfire certain to come? The Witch had Narnia in her frosty grip. Other lands would follow. It was already happening. He'd received word from his father (reluctantly—the Faelings had conveyed to Selbaran a letter for him, unopened until now) that Ettinsmoor, and now two of the Seven Isles, were under her spells. Even the sea routes had begun to falter. When he brought that news to Edmund, his captain nodded and confirmed Van's fears: they were being pushed to the brink of existence, and would be forced to join her, or be obliterated. Hiding was no longer an option.

Van carried a bundle of cloth and lacing up a sternward flight of steps, mulling over his predicament, when a metallic, slightly oily scent reached his nose. Hag's blood. He tensed.

A hag crouched at the edge of the landing, holding her bleeding hand close to her body. "What happened?" he demanded.

She hissed at him, and he recognized her as the hag he'd ordered to fetch soil for the dryad. The blood from her hand smeared onto her robes. A lot of blood. How badly was she hurt? Van steeled himself and laid his bundle down. "What happened?" he asked, softer.

"Caught it in the ropes," she said. "We were hauling cargo aboard."

He crouched and held out his hand, and then realized he didn't know her name. Didn't know any of the crew, really—only their rank. After a distrust-laden pause, she held her hand out. "I can still work," she snapped.

He hesitated. She probably expected to be ordered off the ship. Crew injured at sea had to be tended. There was no choice in that. Crew injured while a ship was at port could be exchanged for able-bodied, healthy replacements. The practice was common enough among pirate ships. The injured crewmember would lose the pay, of course, and maybe the opportunity for another voyage. It was the ship's surgeon's job to determine who stayed and who was discharged due to injury. The ogre in charge of _The Phoenix_ 's doctoring was lazy enough to name almost every injury unworthy of sailing, this close to port.

She'd skinned it deep. She might not have the use of it for a time. Maybe never, if she didn't get it looked after properly. "Where is your herbal?"

"Used. On an injured boggle, after the Faeries' Gate," the hag said. "I can't resupply it. The main herb grows in Ettinsmoor."

With a regretful curse, Van opened the bundle of cloth, and then drew his throwing knife and a paper packet of herbs from his coat. He cut a length of material and opened the packet.

The hag watched him, clearly recognizing the herb as the one she'd mentioned—bloodweed. Rare, hard to obtain, and incredibly effective at healing wounds. He shook a little onto the cloth and tied it around her hand, all without meeting her beady-eyed gaze. "I saw you heal the griffin," she said.

He said nothing.

"You have the visions, too?"

This time, he brought his gaze up sharp to meet hers.

She tilted her head, studying his eyes, and he remembered Lucy's comment about them. After a long, uncomfortable pause, he nodded.

"Raised by humans?"

Prickly now, he could only manage another nod as he finished tying the knot of her makeshift bandage.

"A Haggish herbal is made of bindcloth. It preserves the herbs better," the hag said. When he released her tended hand, she pulled a piece of yellowish, fine-woven cloth from a pouch at her belt. "You may sew pouches into it with any other fabric, and then roll it shut. The outside layer is what seals air and light out of the herbal." She pressed the cloth into his hand.

He flinched at the touch of her gnarled skin on his, but remained where he crouched and ordered himself to relax.

Kindness. From a creature he'd never thought to look twice at.

"What's your name?" he asked.

Another long pause followed while she studied him. "Yaré," she said.

He fingered the scrap of bindcloth. "Thanks. Yaré." He gathered his bundle again, and stood to leave.

"Sir," she said as he was about to go up the stairs.

He turned around.

The hag had tottered to her feet, and eyed him some more. Sharp-eyed as it was, a hag's gaze could make anyone uncomfortable. But Yaré seemed to see right through his guard to the chinks that had always been there. "Herbal skill is prized among the Haggish. As is courage ... just as it is in any other race." She gave him a solemn look.

He hesitated, gave her an awkward nod, then continued on his way.

For the rest of the morning, he spoke little to anyone as they prepared to be off. He had too much to think about. Not the least of which was that he now had an answer.

Yes, he'd been wrong. But it was the answer to a question he hadn't expected to ask.

\- # -

At midday, Lucy stared at the gathered crew on the deck of _The Phoenix_. The way everyone stood around Edmund following his announcement, gaping, she worried for his life. He had revealed his name and his kingship. And the response was a quiet so shattering, she thought she could hear a mouse breathing in the ship's hold.

They had placed Darius, Nalis, the badger, and Arrow at strategic points around him. She and Van had climbed into the shrouds on either side of the ship, the better to signal to the Selbarani ships if the news of Edmund's alliance provoked trouble.

"We are still landed," Edmund called. "Any who wish to leave will be escorted to the main port in Selbaran. You have all served this ship faithfully, and I respond in kind by giving you the choice to bow out of the coming confrontation with no ill will."

A knot of dwarves began to whisper among themselves.

"Speak freely," Edmund said. "I have never prevented you from sharing your concerns before, and I would know your mind on this."

A rough-looking dwarf stepped forward with a scowl. "How do we know you won't deliver us to Cair Paravel's dungeon after all this is over? Narnia's never looked kindly on piracy." Muttering followed this statement.

Ed nodded. "A fair question, and true. We will not condone piracy in our waters, nor those of any country we hold friend." He smiled. "But I feel Narnia might well be in need of a papered privateer."

Still more muttering. The hags at the fringe of the group gave restless hisses, and it looked like the boggles might leave. A minoboar felt for the ax at his belt, as if testing the weight prior to drawing it. Lucy tensed for a fight.

Van was staring into the group of hags, frowning. At last, he leaped down onto the deck. "Are you all cracked?"

The muttering stopped, and many of the crew rounded on him with offended looks.

Lucy swallowed hard. "Van, what are you _doing_?" she whispered.

Stalking in front of them, Van eyed them, each and every one. "Bleeding Underland, the man's asking you to receive pay for something you already do freely. _Without_ pay, unless we plunder it ... and without the protection of a kingdom at your back."

He jabbed a finger toward the hags. "I'm part hag. _You_ know this."

One of the hags hissed at him. The one in front, a weathered old creature with a bandaged hand, eyed Van with something that might be called pride. She snapped at the first hag, then turned her attention back to Van.

A louder murmur rippled through the crowd, but Van interrupted them. "We get visions of the future," he said to the crew. "Ask the hags, they'll tell you. Flashes of premonition. But I don't even need that to see where this is going."

He stalked back and forth. "What I see is our freedom from persecution for being what we already are. Outcasts, half-breeds, exiles! Scavengers on the edges of society, living off the scraps we peel from others' tables." He sprang back into the shrouds and pointed to Edmund. "He led us ... as one of us. And he never led us wrong." His voice rose and carried across the ship. "He knows the sea's our rightful home. The White Witch will take it from us and hunt us until every last one of us lives under her subjugation. There will be no free people. _Anywhere._ Every land, every sea, every creature will be under her boot. I see that, too."

Wide-eyed, Lucy watched Van sweep his arm over the gathered crew, including them all in his gesture. "We. Are. Free. No matter where we came from, or what we are now. Are you going to let the Witch take that from you, or are you going to show her the courage of _The Phoenix_?"

A rumble went through the crowd. Lucy and Edmund shared an astonished look, and then the minoboar raised his ax and shook it. In his low, grunting voice, he said, "For Captain Ed. To war!"

A cheer rose from the crew. Van leaped down from the shroud and stalked back to Edmund's side. With a fierce look, he raised one of his sai into the air. "To war!" he shouted, joining the cry.

Lucy noticed his gaze meet that of the hag with the bandaged hand, and with shock, she saw the hag nodding with open admiration.

The crew hurried to weigh anchor and make for the open sea. Still stunned, Lucy joined Ed and Van on the way back to the captain's quarters. "Nice rally, Van," Ed rumbled, slanting a grin at him. "How much of it was the truth?"

"Most of it," he said with a frown of affront. "But I might have bruised a little pride admitting to it." With a wry look, he stuffed his sai into his coat.

Lucy groaned. "Aslan help us."


	22. Wolves In Winter

_It was the nation and the race dwelling all round the globe that had the lion's heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar._ \- Winston Churchill

\- # -

"Your Majesty!" A Stag ran into camp and skidded to a halt before Corisande, Narnia's High Queen, with barely a bow. "The Witch's ships are moving on Narnia!"

Cori, dressed in what was, for her, full armor (bareheaded, with a loose mail shirt and leggings, for the werewolf in her required little more, even in winter), turned to scan the horizon over the coastal cliffs of Eastern Narnia. Nothing interrupted the endless expanse of iron-grey sky and steel-grey water but the powder-white of falling snow. She turned back to the Stag. "What of King Peter?"

"He has driven back the giants, and his forces are set to guarding the Witch's castle. They are exhausted, my lady. The loss of Queen Lucy has been a mighty blow."

Cori ached so fiercely at the mention of Lucy that the werewolf inside her gave a despairing whine. She straightened her shoulders. Her troops needed to see her strength, even if she didn't feel it. Battles with Calormene brigands and raiding parties had worn them down like grain dashed between millstones. How much longer could they hold until Aslan came?

 _Would_ Aslan come?

Cori shook off the treacherous doubts. Belief that the Lion would arrive was sometimes all that sustained her troops. Food was getting scarce in the winter bleakness, and provisions that might have come from Telmar were hampered by mountain passes and thieves. The mere reflection on Aslan gave courage even when things looked darkest. She bowed her head, silently thanking him for choosing her to lead an army of his.

Hoofbeats sounded in the trodden snow. Cayo, once a dumb horse and her favorite mount—a lifetime ago—approached. Aslan had granted him speech after the Battle of the Stone Table, but with her, he hardly needed it. Another thing to be thankful for. Their years together afforded Cori and Cayo a bond so close that they rarely resorted to much discussion when a thing had to be done. He understood her as no one but Peter could.

Susan and Saris would even now be fortifying the Cair against attack. Susan had charge of Aidan, Peter and Cori's son, while they were away defending Narnia's borders. Cori's heart gave a fierce lurch at the injustice of war tearing apart her family and scattering it across the land. The wolf in her snarled, demanding action.

"All right," she said at last. "We are closest. We shall move North to Cair. If Peter feels it safe to do so, he may leave Oreius at the Witch's castle and join us with whomever may be spared."

The Stag cast a look over Cori's shoulder, toward the mountains bordering Archenland and Calormen.

"The southern border must wait," Cori said, answering the Stag's unspoken question. "We go to the greater danger."

Cayo nodded to her. "I will alert your captains and return to carry you." He spun and cantered off. The Stag left to inform Peter of her intentions.

Cori bowed her head and pressed her fisted hands together against her brow, an old prayer posture leftover from her days as a soldier in her home country. A Telmarine soldier often spared a few moments for this before great battles. He would ask the stars for their light, to illuminate an enemy's stealthy wiles, and for their all-encompassing vision over the world, to search out an enemy's movements and be there to stop them. But now, the words that fell from her lips were for Aslan.

"Lion, watch over Cair and all who dwell within its walls," she said. "Give us speed, to be there before the sword of the enemy comes down. Give us stamina, to lift our blades to defend Narnia's heart after our journey. Give us strength, to endure if our loved ones fall." She raised her head and kissed her fisted hands, staring northwest toward where she knew Peter's encampment must be. "My heart, I leave in your keeping."

\- # -

Leina stood beside the helm of the _Splendour Hyaline_ , Narnia's fastest ship. For King Peter to have allowed her the best of his fleet during wartime, he must have taken the news of Lucy's death hard indeed. Leina strove not to tuck her tail and crouch with apprehension at this most hazardous plan. Though she cared for only one human in any world—and it wasn't Peter—she would follow the High King's wishes until they were seen through.

They were almost to the Windless Boundary, traveling faster than they might if they'd been escorted by other ships. Still, Leina wished Peter had thought with his head instead of his claws. _Why did I not stay in Selbaran all that time ago?_ she thought regretfully. _Why did I not return to the wild after ... he ... left?_

She looked to the helm. A burly satyr named Ridriken manned the wheel. Beside him stood the figure of Tumnus, bowed with age and grief, but with a resolute gleam to his eyes that Leina had seen in many a battle-ready wolf. As Leina loved Edmund, so had Tumnus cared for Lucy. Her death could not go unanswered.

Tumnus seemed to sense Leina looking, and their eyes met. A surge of aching kinship filled her. She nodded to the faun, but then the ache became too great to bear, and she trotted away to the bow.

When this was over, she told herself. When this was over, she would return to Selbaran and lose herself in its forests. Never to mate, never to bear pups, never to speak a word again, even to her own race. The world was unkind to those who loved. She flattened her ears now, and stared ahead into the greyness. A fog began to swallow the ship.

A last task to serve him who called her heartmate brother. And then, she would let the fog of forgetfulness swallow her, too.

\- # -

Ed paced the deck of _The Phoenix_ , watching the sky one moment and the horizon the next. Lucy and Arrow had flown ahead to scout, and were not back yet. The Windless Boundary couldn't be more than half a day away. Less, Ed was certain, in spite of what their ship's instruments said. He felt the tension on the very air.

Boots thumping the deck heralded Van's approach. Ed pivoted on his heel to find Van eyeing the clouds, his hands flicking restlessly at his sides as if waiting to snatch his sai from their sheaths.

Ed gave him a wry smirk. "You, too?"

"It's too quiet. I don't like it," Van rumbled. "Not even birds."

Ed made a thoughtful noise and scanned the grey water as they sliced through the waves. "No merfolk, either. No serpents, no whales, no fish. We must be close. Everything's run for cover."

"Lucky them," Van said, stuffing a twist of rope between his teeth. "Where's Lucy?"

Ed looked askance at him. Van had never called Lucy by her given name. The two stared at one another for a moment.

Van scowled much more vehemently than awkwardness at being caught calling her familiar should have allowed. "Is she in the air, or not?"

"She's fine," Ed said, still scrutinizing his first mate, now with brotherly suspicion. He rested a hand on the hilt of his sword, Wandbreaker, and let Van see him doing it. "Maybe I should make a few things clear about _Queen_ Lucy."

Van raised his eyebrows. "You're not about to lecture me about your sister, are you? The leddy's got a sharper tongue than that sword." His eyes gleamed with envy for a moment. "Bloody fine piece of steelmaking, that. Where'd you get it?"

"It was given to me before my first battle." Ed leered. "I'd hate to use it on someone I like."

Chuckling, Van turned to watch the sky. His smile faded. "She's coming."

Ed followed Van's stare. Lucy and the griffin were no more than specks yet, but the beast raced toward them as fast as one of his kind could go. There could be only one reason for that. "Bear down, Van. We're about to meet company."

Van gave a grim nod. "If you've got any tricks up your sleeve, mate, you might want to start cashing them in."


	23. Fear

The moment Lucy neared enough for him to see her clearly, Van bolted toward the main deck with a sick feeling in his chest. Weights crushed at his ribcage. Lucy had crumpled into a ball on the griffin's back, and though he could see no wound, the look of agony on her face gripped his airway in a stranglehold. _She's hurt, get help!_ he tried to shout, but his voice would not come.

Furious with his incapacity, he leaped down a flight of steps to the main deck. Edmund was right behind him, and the captain's look of alarm echoed every bad feeling racing through Van's mind.

As soon as the griffin reached the deck, Lucy tumbled off the beast's back. Van caught her in his arms, and she curled against his chest with a shuddering whimper. Van felt a purely feral growl bubbling up in his throat. He looked to Arrow.

The griffin's pupil was dilated, his eye almost entirely black. The look of fear in the birdlike face was only now beginning to fade. "Women. A score of them. Dark dresses, high-collared. They just _looked_ at us..." The griffin opened his beak wide in a terrified pant, even as he shook like a dog flinging water from its pelt.

Lucy whimpered again, hiding her face in Van's chest. Frantically, caring neither about propriety nor audience, Van patted her down, searching for an injury.

She raised a tear-streaked face, and instead of finding him, she sought the captain. "Edmund!" she squeaked, and launched herself out of his arms and into her brother's.

Van struggled with a pang of unreasonable jealousy, then it washed away as he realized Lucy was sobbing against Edmund's chest. "Gone ... all gone, all dead," she cried. "I heard her say it in my head. Peter, Susan, you, the children. Even Mother and Father. Alone, I was alone ..."

The anguish in her voice tore open Van's chest—a shocking, bright stripe of pain he could neither predict nor prevent. His hands twitched. He wanted to snatch her back from Edmund's grasp and thrust her behind him, ready to defend her with every menacing weapon he possessed. How had she wound herself through him so thoroughly that the very look of fright on her face demented him with fury?

"Lucy," Ed said, and Van heard the captain's voice shaking with impatience and worry, "what is the matter? What did you find?"

"Their skin ... was purple. Their eyes were like flame." Lucy clutched at Edmund's leather jerkin as if to convince herself he was there in front of her.

Ed muttered a particularly stunning curse word. "Aslan's ears, Lucy, you're the bravest woman I know." He stroked her braided hair, then raised his head over hers. "Dreadken," he said to Van. "They feed on fear, prey on it. I faced one once, and it almost killed me."

Dreadken—a nasty breed of witch from Dark Island in the Eastern Sea. Sailors knew well the fate awaiting them if they dared approach that island. Anyone who returned from Dark Island was frenzied with incoherence, and did not live long enough afterward to tell just what he'd faced there.

Van had never met one of the Dreadken, and he thanked his stars for it, because he'd seen the damage done to those who had. Soldier or sovereign, it didn't matter—one encounter with a Dreadken was enough to drive a man into madness for the rest of his shortened life. How, _how_ had Lucy and Edmund faced them—How had Lucy faced so _many_?—and lived to tell of it?

Van had enough sense to step closer, but he was hard put to keep his voice down and avoid alarming the crew. " _Twenty_ of them?" he hissed. "They'll annihilate us as soon as we get close!"

"They can only strike a fearspell if they're able to focus on you," Edmund said. "If we keep them distracted with our archers, we'll have a chance." Ed looked back down to his sister. With a startling display of tenderness (Was that how it was to be a family?), he dried Lucy's tears with his fingers. "Buck up, Lu. You've done well."

She shook her head and struggled visibly to get herself under control. "That's not all," she insisted. "They have half a dozen Calormene ships, and an Ettin battering ram. And _she's_ with them, Ed. The White Witch is back, and Aslan is nowhere in sight." Lucy crossed her arms over her belly, gasping with the remnants of her terror, and Van stepped a little closer to her.

The captain's face went grim. "Then it's time to cash in my tricks." He sought Van again. "Take the ship's wheel. Lucy, lead him where you saw their fleet. I have a bad feeling they're headed for Cair."

\- # -

At last.

At long, long last, after a hundred years of waiting, and another score of years of half-life oblivion in the wastes of northern Ettinsmoor, At last, Jadis would make Narnia hers, for no other reason than that it had been so long denied her. No one, _no one_ denied her anything. Her own sister had met her doom trying. Jadis had spent her years after the Battle of Beruna wisely, planning and plotting, searching out weaknesses and planting spies.

And finding spies, as well. One of her generals had noticed a troublesome lack of influx of weapons for the money laid out in return. That led to reports of a rogue ship prowling the Eastern Sea. Some said it was a pirate. Others, a rebel for the Narnians. Still others thought it a ghost ship, and indeed, any report received on _The Phoenix_ was obtained thirdhand, for no one who'd seen the ship ever resurfaced to talk of it. The hearsay took months even to get to her.

Until Faun Kamus came to her with news of the ship's captain, whose identity had been unknown all this time.

Edmund.

His name alone set her pacing restlessly across the deck of her Calormene flagship. She would crush Narnia, and then spend the rest of her endless years wiping mention of him from the pages of history.

He had destroyed her wand. Almost destroyed her. She would return the favor with interest.

Two of the Calormene puppets approached her. The first bowed low, then preened the feather on his turban as if she cared what it looked like. " _The Phoenix_ comes, O She Whose Justice Is Swift, and Whose Mighty Army Is—"

"Ready our bronze catapults," she snapped. "Bring up the oils from the hold." She eyed him fiercely, and it bothered her that she could take no satisfaction in the look of terror on his face.

It was the wrong face.

The Calormenes bowed, bowed again, then bowed yet again. Just as she was ready to swipe at them with her wand (a new wand, small and protected from attack because she could hold it close to her body), they fled.

She studied the wand, and briefly considered striking at their retreating backs, just to see if their destruction would amuse her.

No. She needed to see fear, real fear of her power, on their faces. But even that would not bring her the pleasure she desperately sought.

There was only one person whose terror would fill the gaping hole where feeling had once been. Killing him would be slow, thorough, and satisfying—she was sure of it.

But then, it only took one courier to carry orders. "Slave," she called pleasantly.

The Calormenes turned, and Jadis aimed her wand at the second one. His fright gave her no pleasure as he turned to water that splashed to the deck. The second Calormene bolted away as quick as his feet would carry him.

Jadis stared at the puddle on the deck. A stream of water trickled toward her feet. She sidestepped it, indifferent to the slave's fate. Aslan had been able to return to life the people she'd made into stone with her previous wand. He would not find that so easy now that her victims were turned to water that ran everywhere.

One thing Jadis did well was to learn from her errors. But even that could not please her.


	24. In The Coils Of The Cobra

"He's going to _what_?"

The dwarf before Lucy shuffled his feet and yanked his cap off his head. "P-Parley with the White Witch ... Your Majesty."

Lucy tried not to shake with terror ... or shake the dwarf out of sheer frustration. Was Edmund out of his mind? "Thank you. Carry on."

The dwarf hurried away with alacrity, and Lucy ran for the back stairs of _The Phoenix_. She anticipated Jadis would keep to the protocols of parley just long enough for Edmund to set foot on her ship. She guessed Ed thought the same, but he still hadn't told her of the meeting—undoubtedly because she would have wanted to come. Jadis would have accepted her as well. The Witch would be elated to have not one, but two of the Narnian royalty in her clutches. Ed probably thought to prevent that by keeping Lucy from joining him.

Well, it was a younger sister's prerogative to ignore her brother from time to time.

She hurried up to the main deck and scrambled toward the rear mast. Clutching a rope ladder reaching to its top, she scurried up to where Arrow lay perched on the beam. A sailor passed her by on his way down, but when he saw her, he merely muttered a greeting. Everyone was too occupied themselves (and too respectful of her title) to ask about her business.

Arrow paused in preening a wing when she arrived at the crossbeam. "Your Majesty?"

"We have work, Arrow. Ed's going to parley with the White Witch, and we need to be there in case it goes badly."

The griffin angled his head. It was a mark of how well they knew one another that he didn't even try to dissuade her. "Which you believe it will."

She crouched on the beam beside him, holding on to a rope to steady herself even though there wasn't much turbulence to rock the ship, this close to the Windless Boundary. "Do you think for a second she'll let him go once she has him? I know _exactly_ what he thinks he's doing. He'll try to draw her focus to him, and away from the battle. She's obsessed with him because he beat her, and he knows it." She hesitated, with horrible images of Edmund beaten, bloodied, and murdered whirling through her thoughts. Her voice shook when she spoke again. "I'm afraid for him."

"Then what are you waiting for?" said a voice behind her.

She whirled around so fast, she slipped.

Van caught her foot and pushed her back up to the beam. His bronze eyes glinted. "He didn't tell me, either," Van said, answering her unspoken question. "He's a damn fool, and you're a damner one." He turned his attention to the griffin. "Feathers, stay out of sight unless you see them preparing for battle. Then fly to the Selbarani ships and signal them for the attack."

"What are you going to do?" Lucy asked.

He gave a grim smile. "What I do best."

\- # -

Edmund arrived on the deck of the White Witch's flagship hoping he'd buried his dread deep enough. He had hoped never to see her again—not in waking life. She still haunted his nightmares freely, reducing him in spite of all his current power and courage to that ten-year-old boy who would always fear her. Some nights, he woke gasping and sweating. Those were the nights he was glad he slept alone, that Asha had been far away in Selbaran for the year and more he'd been at sea. She'd sense his distress, but he was glad she couldn't see it for herself. He would not tell even her of the horrifying things Jadis did to his loved ones in those nightmares. Things that left him trembling and unable to speak, until dawn came and he forced himself to put his mental armor back in place for the day.

Parley. He knew that the Witch would refuse any terms he gave, but he would observe the custom and try to prevent war if he could.

Foolish, maybe. He hadn't asked anyone to accompany him—even Van. All hands aboard _The Phoenix_ needed to prepare for attack, and he expected it to begin almost as soon as he met Jadis for this already-failed discussion of terms.

Two burly Calormene guards intercepted him and escorted him to the White Witch's cabin. He dug his nails into his palms until he was certain he was bleeding. A few werewolves stood nearby and must have scented the blood, because they gave him eager leers. Ed could smell blood himself, and not just his own. The ship had obviously been in a terrible battle recently, and the scent of gore hadn't quite been scrubbed away. He said a silent prayer for the souls who'd faced Jadis and her mob.

Calormenes eyed him with clear intentions of cutting his throat and taking whatever valuables he had on his person. They would find none. Any treasure he'd lifted from other ships had gone straight back to Narnia through his connections—minus the percentage he'd allowed to slip through to the Witch's allies. He wondered grimly how much of that offset was financing this floating butcher block. He blessed his luck that he'd made it this long without detection.

No more hiding now. A tremor ran through him. He longed to lay it all down and hope for a quick death, but he had made Aslan a promise to see this through. Whatever else happened was in the Lion's paws.

Boggles hissed as he passed them. A werewolf snarled, uncomfortably close and baring its teeth as if to bite him. He smelled its hot, rotten-meat breath and held his own.

All too soon, his escorts banged on the door of what would be the captain's suite. A cold, familiar female voice bade them enter, and the taste of fear filled Edmund's mouth like a tongueful of iron filings. He beat it back viciously and locked his knees, trying desperately to keep the faces of his loved ones in his mind's eye. _Lucy. Susan. Peter. Cori. Asha. Silas. Aslan._ He said the litany over and over in his mind, an interminable space of time crammed into that instant before the door swung open.

And she was there, tall, pale, frigid as ever. Edmund wondered if the cold air rolling out of the room and around his feet was his imagination. The Calormenes scrambled away so fast, he doubted it. His heartbeat slammed in his ears as he took in her porcelain-white face and a gown that shimmered like the inside of an oyster shell.

Jadis fixed her granite-cold eyes on him. And she actually smiled. "Come in, dear heart."

His breath whooshed out past his lips. Starved for air, his lungs burned. But he stepped inside and closed the door.

\- # -

Jadis gripped her wand and closed her eyes, soaking in a feeling of elation so foreign, so powerful, she shook with it. She hadn't felt anything in more years than she could count. Long life had drained her of emotion.

Except this. A roaring, raging fire of fierce exultation that burned through her with such power that she wanted more of it. Needed more. Needed it the way men needed air to breathe.

Even witnessing Aslan's death had not given her this rush. She had thought it would. But afterward, she'd only been able to look away with the cold knowledge that her great enemy was gone, that there was nothing left to oppose her, nothing to aspire to. Nothing to marker the endless years left to her.

She opened her eyes and fixed hungrily on the speeding pulse in Edmund's throat. Nothing else gave away his fear of her. And he feared her. She knew it. She reveled in it. Reveled in the knowledge that he could stand there, so terrified, not moving.

There would be no rescue this time. Aslan was not here to save his beloved kings and queens. In all her travels, she had seen no trace of him, heard only rumours.

She stared at Edmund, feeding on his fear for a few delicious moments, then stalked toward him. "You've changed, darling."

His eyes narrowed a fraction. A successful blow. Someone he cared for must use that endearment. "You haven't," he said, and the steadiness in his voice infuriated her.

She loved even that.


	25. Leaders And Lawbreakers

Lucy and Arrow streaked through the sky toward Asha's ship. The dryad queen was already on deck, holding her bow. The moment they landed, Lucy opened her mouth to blurt out the news of Ed's danger.

"I know," Asha interrupted. "I've been watching the enemy ships since he left _The Phoenix_."

"You're—You're not going to go to him?" Lucy protested, wincing at how the outrage in her voice must sound to Edmund's wife.

The look Asha turned on her bore a humbling distress, but Asha just turned back to the grey water spanning the breach between her ship and that of the Witch. "He's not in pain."

Two dryads approached Asha and gave her nods of deference. "It's done, Your Majesty."

"Good," Asha said. "May Aslan's breath be swift." As the dryads left, she turned her attention back to the Witch's ship and whispered, so low Lucy didn't think she was meant to hear, "And may I be strong for you."

Lucy fisted her hands, fury and impatience and fear boiling up inside her and pushing the words out: "Tell me what's going on!"

Asha turned to her then, fixing the full weight of her vivid-green stare on her. "You must go back to _The Phoenix_ and make it ready for full sail toward Narnia."

"Leave him to her? Are you _mad_?" Lucy screamed.

Asha pressed a hand to Lucy's trembling arm. "All is as it should be, Lucy. You must trust him."

Trust him? Trust her brother, who had spent his life wrestling his fear of the White Witch, and now had gone willingly into her hands? Trust him, whom she'd come on this mad journey to save in the first place? Near tears, she threw off Asha's hand. " _What?_ He's going to be tortured, and all is _as it should be_?" She seized Asha's arms and shook her. Then she noticed the tears in Asha's eyes also, and loosened her grip.

Asha flung her hands off, panting. "Do you think I want this? He is doing what he can to buy us time!" Her voice shook, and tears tracked down her cheeks. "I have lost a daughter to this war, and I might lose a husband also." She jabbed a finger toward the anchored _Phoenix_. "The only way we're going to make it to Narnia before the whole of the Witch's fleet moves on it is by the wind that pushes _that ship_. So the least you can do, Lucy Pevensie, is captain it and guide us there."

Realization plowed through Lucy like a dash of frigid water. She stared at the Witch's ship, open-mouthed. "Oh, Edmund," she whispered sorrowfully.

Snapping out of it, she turned to Arrow. "Where did Van go after we left him?"

The griffin shook his head. "Disappeared like a mouse into a bolt-hole."

No time, no time! "We'll have to move without him," Lucy said, even as regret punched through her. She leaped onto Arrow's back again. "Fly, Arrow, and hope the wind stays with us. I'll have to send you looking for Van after I'm back at _The Phoenix_."

\- # -

The odds were against Narnia. The Witch had amassed a staggering fleet of Calormene and Ettin ships, and based on everything Edmund knew of her movements, she was about to point them all at Cair Paravel and blow it off the map.

All now depended on how well he lied. And if you were to lie, it was best to stick as close as possible to the truth. So Edmund raised his head and stared Jadis in the eye, and said, "I can't fight you anymore."

She laughed. "Don't be silly. You haven't fought me at all. You've been avoiding me." She angled her head, looking for all the world like a courtier playing coy to a suitor. "How long have I spent in that head of yours, Edmund darling?" She fingered the hair at his temples, and he had to stiffen himself so as not to recoil from her chilly touch. "It seems to be wearing on you."

He held her gaze and allowed her to see what facing her cost him—the discomfort, the churning in his gut, the way his breath came fast as he remembered the still-vivid, terrifying night he'd spent as her captive, waiting to die. The grim knowledge that now, she would have the opportunity to finish the job and move on to the rest of his family. And he was totally unarmed and unequal to her power.

She studied him the way a collector studied odd bits of plant. "What do you want?"

"I want this over."

She smiled sweetly. "I don't believe you. Jorena!"

The door swung open, and with a sinking sensation, Edmund braced himself. A Dreadken stood, her face demure, in the doorframe. Her blood-red eyes lingered on Edmund before drifting to Jadis. "Your Majesty?"

"Read him."

The Dreadken spread her hands even as she entered the room and let the door close behind her. "My talents are at your service as always, my lady," she said with silken smoothness, "but my gift finds only fears, insecurities, negativities."

"I don't care!" Jadis whipped a small, sleek wand from the folds of her skirts and thrust the point of it into the Dreadken's throat until the other witch gagged and coughed. "You will do as I say, or you will find yourself trickling across the deck and into a wash bucket. And I will find another who is willing to do as she's told." Jadis turned her stare on Edmund once more. She stalked back to him and got right in his face, then scratched at his collarbone with the tip of her new wand. "I'm interested to find what frightens you, love." Leaning forward, she breathed across his lips. Even her breath smelled like ice. "Aside from me, of course."

\- # -

Dripping and muttering curse words under his breath, Vandelar hoisted himself over a rail and onto the deck of the White Witch's ship. The last thing he'd wanted today was an unscheduled swim in ice-cold waters. Scratch that. The last thing he'd wanted today was to run headlong into a death trap. No luck on either count, it seemed. But no one was better than he at sneaking about undetected and stealing people blind.

Today's loot: one errant ship's captain. "I must like you or something, Edmund Pevensie," Van muttered. "I'm about to fashion my own bloody noose in your honor."

He scanned the deck carefully, but no one was approaching this dead-end spot. _Bless those landlubbing Calormenes,_ he thought darkly. They wouldn't know a sensible ship's design if it bit them on the arse.

He turned around and held out his hand over the rail.

Yaré took his hand and slipped over the rail onto the deck, silent as a ghost. "He's here, sir. I smell him," she said. "They'll smell you, too. Rub yourself down."

Van curled his lip and took out a jar of some foul ointment the hag had provided him, then smeared it over his exposed skin. The hag gave an approving nod. Van took a deep breath and almost choked on the stink. Even his heightened senses couldn't detect his own scent underneath the concoction. "I smell like a pack of minotaurs who've been wrestling in week-old refuse."

"Good." Yaré gave him a beaky grin. "Goes with your temperament. Sir."

He sneered. "Why did I bring you again?"

"My sparkling wit, I should think." Her dark eyes twinkled.

He turned his attention back to their mission. "Will you need me?"

The hag shook her head. "They won't look twice at me, but you stand out like a battle flag. Keep low. And should you need it ..." She pressed a vial of something purple, with the consistency of glue, into his hand. "Poison. One drop will fell a giant at the blink of an eye." She nodded to his belt. "Use it on your weapons."

 _Which ones?_ Van thought with a wry look at the vial. He'd brought his entire arsenal on this mad mission. He raised an eyebrow at the hag.

She gave a short, hissing chuckle, but it was interrupted by a distant shout across the water. _The Phoenix_ was raising anchor. "They're leaving us," Yaré said.

Van uncorked the vial of poison and dipped the points of his sai into it. "I'd leave us too, if us was going on a death march. How do you say 'hopeless cause' in Haggish?"

"Good luck," she said.

Van tilted his head and started around the corner of the dead end. "Sounds about right."


	26. The Fox's Brush

Edmund watched the Dreadken move toward him—float, almost—with a wary eye. He expected her to raise her hands the same as the first one had, the one he'd faced when he was younger. But this one had barely stopped at his feet before the onslaught began.

An image of Asha, covered in greenish blood, filled his head. Edmund sucked in a breath of surprise and half recoiled, before gathering himself and staring down the violet witch.

The Dreadken smiled in delight. "He fights it," she said with wonder in her voice. "You have experience with us, don't you? How marvelous."

Jadis's hands jerked. "I don't want him fighting it. I want him on his knees begging me to stop it," she snapped. "What do you see?"

"A woman," the Dreadken said with a touch of disappointment. "No more than they always see at first. Their wives, husbands, mates. But not a human one, this. It is a dryad."

Jadis beamed and approached Edmund. She stroked his cheek with bitter-cold fingers, and he jerked his head away with a sneer of disgust. She ignored the motion. "I'd heard of your leafy mate. And a son, too, I'm told."

No sooner did she say it than an image of Silas burning alive flashed through Edmund's thoughts. The apparition cried out, his skin black and peeling. Ed ground his teeth. _It's not real, it's not real. Remember it's not real._

Jorena clasped her hands together. "Interesting." She took a deep breath, and the horrifying images hurtled faster through his brain. Peter, Susan, Lucy, Cori—all of them dying in various ghastly ways, their eyes milky and faded, their bodies rotting away. Ed grunted with effort and jammed his will hard against the intruder in his mind.

The Dreadken took a step back, now positively glowing with feverish excitement. She threw vision after vision at him, so fast that they barely paused for him to absorb her current tactic before passing on to the next.

Then everything went white. Ice filled his veins. The cold smothered him. In his mind, he saw a grave, recently unearthed from the snow. He just made out the slush-smudged name on the headstone—Helen Faywater Pevensie—before he caught sight of Jadis standing nearby, with her hand laid possessively on the shoulder of a wispy, translucent, pale-haired little girl.

"Papa?" the girl called.

The sound of her voice shot down inside him and ripped back outward, a hook that dragged his buried heartaches out and spilled them, blood-red, into the snow.

"She's mine now," Jadis said with a sweet smile.

Rage roared through him, and as if he'd willed it, the dream-Edmund found his sword in his hand. He raised it and charged toward the White Witch with a furious howl.

But the Witch thrust his daughter between them, and the point of his sword drove through Helen instead.

Her shriek of pain rended his heart in two. He screamed in the vision, and in real life as well. Edmund dropped to his knees, shivering and gasping, no longer sure what was real and what was vision. His whole world became a flood of oily black remorse. He didn't even see the witches conversing in urgent whispers.

Guilt exploded through him now. His every misdeed, every failure, burst forth and laid itself bare in front of him. Pain crushed at his lungs. He wasn't worthy of his crown, wasn't worthy to be here, breathing the same air as Susan and Peter and Lucy. He'd only been fooling himself. Everything he touched went so wrong, and he desperately wanted someone else, someone better, to put it right ...

The Dreadken gave a little gasp and clapped her hands like a giddy child, but Edmund couldn't respond, couldn't get past the screaming in his head.

The very real Jadis in the cabin knelt before him, her eyes full of pity. "You keep doing that, don't you, darling?" Jadis murmured. "You keep taking on this blame, this heartache. It isn't yours, Edmund. Let go ... let go ..." Her coaxing eyes began to weave through his senses, unraveling him. He struggled, struggled, began to lose his grasp on everything ...

 _Hold on, Son of Adam. I am here._

Edmund closed his eyes, cutting off his sight of Jadis. He sucked in a breath of spring-sweet air and focused all his being on the voice of Aslan in his head. "You came," he whispered gratefully.

Before him, Jadis made a sound of sympathy. "Of course I came," she murmured. Edmund felt her hand petting his hair, smoothing down the fabric of his tunic. "Edmund, darling, darling. Open your eyes. Let go of your pain, let go of this burden on your shoulders. It will be so easy once you let go."

 _Face her, Edmund. It is time,_ said Aslan. _You will do this on your own strength._

 _I can't,_ he thought in panic.

 _You can,_ Aslan insisted, his voice a growl. _Your family needs you. They believe in you. I believe in you. I gave you this task not to punish you, Edmund. I gave it because I knew from the beginning that you had the strength for it._

Edmund's throat clenched. Aslan _had_ known. He had known Edmund would start his life in Narnia with betrayal. He had known Edmund would spend years trying to atone for that. He had known, even then, that Edmund would be sitting here now, facing the very worst of himself and begging for someone to take it all away.

And he had known Edmund would have the strength to do it himself.

Ed summoned all his nerve and opened his eyes to the beautiful, perfect, cold face in front of him. The roaring of all the fears the Dreadken had planted in his head faded to nothing more than whispers. Ed let his eyes unfocus, seeing not Jadis, but forcing himself to envision Asha. Her long, pale hair. Her bottomless green eyes. Her skin, so pale he could see the greenish veins underneath in places. The way she smelled, like a forest in summer, when the air was hot and still outside, but cool and caressing under the leaves ...

Bit by bit, he felt his face relax, felt it lose that mask of agony and effort.

"That's it, sweetheart," Jadis crooned, and he pushed himself to think of Asha's voice. The point of light inside him that was Asha's soulbound connection warmed with pride and love, and he let it wash through him. All the feeling he had inside him was for Asha alone, and when Jadis touched her icy lips to his, it was Asha that filled his thoughts.

The White Witch sat back, looking thoroughly satisfied. "That's better, isn't it?" she murmured, brushing a finger along his cheek.

Ed remained unmoving, his gaze out of focus, lingering on the daylight spilling into the cabin through the windows behind the witches' skirts.

Jadis stood. Ed saw it from the corner of his eye, but his gaze stayed on the windows. Outside, a ship lifted anchor and passed out of sight.

"He's broken," the Dreadken said with a note of frustration.

Jadis went rigid. "Yes. Too quickly." She snatched out her wand, and before the Dreadken even had a chance, Jadis turned her to a splash of water that soaked the carpet. The wet soaked into Ed's knees, but still he stayed there, staring out the window.

Jadis charged out of the room and slammed the door.

Ed blinked. _The Phoenix_ had left. And with it, if his soulbound connection could be relied upon—and it could—Asha's ship, and probably the other as well.

He remembered his old friend, Broadear the Fox. _Always trust a mission of cunning to a fox_ , Broadear had said once. The two had often discussed such things.

When a fox fought battles, he feinted with his brush, that bushy red-and-white tail that was so tantalizing, so distracting to an enemy. A fox knew how to use the most tempting part of himself to lure the enemy into a terrible miscalculation.

Ed stared out the windows at empty sea, picturing the racing, wind-blessed _Phoenix_ steering its companions to Narnia leagues, hours, days ahead of the White Witch.

And he grinned, all teeth, like a fox. "Thanks for the lesson, Broadear."


	27. Captain Lucy

Nalis stood on the deck of _The Phoenix_ beside Lucy, lashing his tail. On her other side stood Darius, grimly watching the water ahead. Before them ran the two Selbarani ships, blown on the mysterious wind that steered _The Phoenix_ even in a dead calm.

The badger from the sunken _Luna_ eyed the centaurs, his posture hunched nervously. For the two days they'd been sailing, he seemed to be waiting for an explosion, and no wonder. Since her return to the ship, none of the three had let her out of their sight. (Darius had gone so far as to post himself outside the captain's quarters at night.)

Lucy suspected Nalis had only avoided an outburst at the loss of Edmund because he didn't want to lose his temper in front of her. That, and he must have seen on her face how distressed she was. Nalis had been through many adventures with Edmund, and his stern expression echoed her own disquiet with unsettling similarity.

Steering the ship was a minotaur, the next in command after Van (still missing, she guessed, since Arrow had not returned yet from his search). Lucy kept reminding herself that the creatures aboard this ship were loyal to Edmund, but without him or Vandelar, she worried constantly if their alliance would hold. She, the badger, Nalis, and Darius would be alone against many times their number, if it came to mutiny.

 _You must trust him,_ Asha had said of Edmund. Lucy looked ahead to the Selbarani ships, and prayed that if trouble arose, the dryads would notice and come to their aid. After the betrayal of Kamus, though, the possibility of another traitor ran rampant in her mind.

 _Oh, stop worrying so!_ she told herself. _You sound like Susan._ Oddly, the reminder of her fussy sister made her smile. _Besides, this crew needs to see competence, or they will most certainly mutiny._ On that thought, she raised her spyglass and looked astern over the water. The ocean behind them was a clear, flat, blue-grey canvas of water. Lucy marveled at the speed of _The Phoenix_ under its full wind. She chivvied the Selbarani ships before her like a dog herding sheep.

"Quick, she is," the minotaur rumbled. "We'll be to the Windless Boundary any time, and then Narnia in a week all told, if we can keep this speed."

Lucy looked to her feet. The deck sparkled with frost, even after a recent scrubbing. " _How_ do we keep this speed? What makes it freeze so?"

"Dunno," said the minotaur. "I'd have said she were cursed, but ain't a cursed ship anywhere reels in the booty we get."

Lucy swallowed her discomfort. "Have you attacked Narnian ships?"

The minotaur grunted, then gave her a sidelong look before clearly deciding honesty would be best. "Some o' them. We ain't been much choosy where our gold comes from ... Y'Majesty," he added, as if he just now remembered her rank.

She took a deep breath. "And what happened to them?"

"Taken whole to the Faeries' Gate," he replied. "No good letting a ship sink with its loot if you can capture it intact."

Lucy opened her mouth to ask what happened to the ships after that, but then she spotted a dark speck on the western horizon, coming fast. Turning her spyglass on it, she gasped. "The _Splendour Hyaline_! Do we have any friendly colors to run up the mast?"

The minotaur nodded to the empty masthead. "We have _no_ colors, Y'Majesty."

"Who do we have on board that's capable of flight or a fast swim?"

"All earthbound creatures," the minotaur said.

Lucy frowned. In Narnia, ships were not allowed to leave port without crew members who could fly, swim, walk, or all three. One never knew what talents one would need on the high sea. Ed had probably not needed or wanted the extra mobility (no one would want to communicate with a pirate ship, if they could escape it instead), but Lucy found herself wishing he'd employed at least one flightworthy creature.

She needed colors. The Selbarani ships flew in advance of _The Phoenix_ , but at this speed, the _Splendour Hyaline_ might assume they were trying to outrun _The Phoenix_ and open fire before the dryads could intercept them to explain.

Assumptions in wartime were a very bad thing, indeed.

"We need colors," Lucy murmured, thinking fast of any large swaths of cloth they might have aboard, aside from the plain canvas sheets of their sails. "Mister Badger, come with me." To Nalis, she added, "I'll only be gone a moment."

\- # -

Ridriken, the satyr first mate of the _Splendour Hyaline_ , squinted to the three ships approaching the Windless Boundary. Belowdecks, a brace of crew rowed with all their strength, but passage through this cursed stretch of water was limping at best. "It's _The Phoenix_ ," he said to the captain, Oren, a man of Galma. He frowned. "Running two Selbarani ships ahead of her, looks like. Should we get men to the guns, sir?"

Oren lifted his spyglass to his eye. "By the Lamppost, what sort of flag is _that_?" He handed over the glass.

Ridriken put it to his own eye, then gave a grunt of surprise and confusion.

At the masthead of the forward-surging _Phoenix_ flew a billowing brocade dress.

\- # -

When the Selbarani ships neared enough to make it possible ( _Almost cannon range, too—how smart Lucy was, using that dress!_ Asha thought with approval), Asha changed into a flurry of leaves and raced over the water to the _Splendour Hyaline_. No sooner had she landed on deck and changed back to her human form than the crew gave murmurs of surprise.

The captain approached her and bowed. "Your Majesty. It's good to see you safe."

Pointing to _The Phoenix_ , Asha said, "As is Queen Lucy. She's captaining that ship, sir."

" _What?"_ yowled a voice. Crew stumbled aside as an enormous wolf barged between them. "She's _alive_?"

A clatter sounded on the deck, and Asha recognized Faun Tumnus. Teary-eyed, the elderly faun clasped Asha's hands. "L-Lucy? Queen Lucy's alive? Oh, thank Aslan, thank Aslan ..." He dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief. "And thank you, Your Majesty, thank you. You'll never know how relieved I am ..."

With a smile, Asha disregarded the old faun's use of Lucy's name in the familiar sense. She knew of his close friendship with Lucy, and it warmed her heart to see how happily he took her news. To their captain, identifiable by the fine cut of his tunic, she said, "The Witch is on her way with a brace of Calormene ships and a group of Dreadken. We've come to aid you. There's too much to explain right now, but you must know _The Phoenix_ is an ally to Narnia."

The wolf shoved a dwarf aside and rushed up to Asha with heartache clearly in her eyes. Asha knelt down, recognizing the look. "Hello, Leina."

Leina's ears sagged. She jumped forward and pressed her muzzle against Asha's cheek. Asha hugged her back. "He's well," she murmured, and Leina gave a faint whine. Asha stroked the wolf's coarse ruff. _Or he should be,_ Asha thought, seeking her soulbound connection to him and finding it still whole. She wouldn't be convinced of it until she saw him standing on his own two feet before her.

When she and the wolf parted, Asha stood up again. The captain closed his spyglass and handed it to a sailor. "Tell us as much as you can, then we'll turn her around and row with you."

"No need to row, Captain," Asha said. " _The Phoenix_ carries its own wind. She'll drive us before her, right across the Boundary and back to Cair Paravel."

The captain turned back to _The Phoenix_ , now galloping toward them over the flat expanse of the Windless Boundary. "I'll be a one-winged albatross," he murmured. "All hands, bear this boat homeward!"

A general cheer rose among the crew. Asha signaled to her ship by switching briefly into a cloud of leaves, then turned back to her human form and prepared herself to explain that Narnia was about to come to full-scale war.

Leina stayed close by, her yellow eyes still full of worry. "Where is he?"

Asha swallowed. _Be strong. He needs you to be strong._ "Queen Lucy took over the ship from Edmund," she said. Everyone within earshot snapped their head around to stare at her with rapt attention and breathless silence. She struggled to control her fears. "Right now, he's with Jadis, and using every trick he has to keep her from getting to us, before _we_ get to Cair."

The satyr manning the wheel swore, loud and colorful enough to cause Asha to blush to her ears.

"Once a king or queen of Narnia ..." said Tumnus with admiration in his voice.

She smiled at him. "Always."


	28. A Lesson Learned

Edmund was on his feet by the time Jadis stormed back into her cabin. He made certain he wore the glassy, dazed expression she expected of him, which was damned difficult considering the exceedingly satisfying way she fumed.

Clearly, she'd noticed she was a few ships short of a battle.

 _Stop smiling,_ he ordered himself. _Shoulders slack. Eyes blank. Don't let her think you can think._

When her glare landed on him, though, it was little trouble to shoo away the parts of himself with feeling. A spy's work was lonely stuff. Any show of emotion while undercover could cost lives ... especially one's own. Over the many years of his Narnian life, he'd learned that to survive, he must be able to bury what was important to him when necessary.

And now, as he watched the White Witch approach him, he knew it was more necessary than it had ever been.

The boy inside him squirmed and wanted to cower before her. The man remembered that Aslan had chosen him for this, and stayed on his feet.

Jadis circled around him, trailing a hand over his shoulders. She paused behind him, and he just managed not to recoil when her icy hand touched the back of his neck. "You have a scar there," she murmured in his ear. "A stinger?" When he didn't answer, he felt her nails dig into his skin. "You will answer me."

"A needle," he said without inflection. "Someone tried to poison me."

"I'm glad they didn't succeed," she said, circling around to his front with her hand still trailing over his tunic. "It would have denied me the pleasure of seeing you again, even though I tried to kill you myself. How is that stab wound doing, actually?" She curled a hand around the back of his neck and jerked him toward her for a bruising kiss. When he didn't protest, she loosened her grasp and frowned at him. "Not even a _little_ fight, sweetheart?"

"Why would I fight you?" he asked, still with that same monotone. "You've won. You have everything."

"Not _quite_ everything," she purred. Again she kissed him, even more bruising, so hard her teeth cut his lip and he tasted blood.

And still he didn't fight, because he could feel the Lion growling in his head. A warning to stay absolutely still, for the cobra might strike at the slightest provocation. He commanded his body to remain slack and pliable. _I trust you, Aslan._

Jadis jerked back from him with rage in her eyes, then shoved him away so hard he slammed against the opposite wall. His blood stained her lips, shocking red against the white of her face. "Damn you! Your upstart brother showed more fight when I was killing him at Beruna."

 _We both know how Beruna ended, Jadis,_ he thought, steadying himself on his feet. And then, seeing the cold anger on her face, he paused. Not because he feared her next move. Not because he still doubted whether he could hold her off from chasing _The Phoenix_ to Narnia. Not even because the boy inside him was still shaking so hard his knees knocked when he looked at her. No.

He pitied her.

 _That could have been me._

The realization was so startling that for a moment he did no more than stare at her.

When he'd entered Narnia, he was selfish, thoughtless of what he already had. He'd felt trapped between a younger sister beloved by the whole family, and two older siblings—one beautiful beyond compare, and the other so charismatic that people gravitated to him wherever he went. Someone else was always kinder, more attractive, more admired. Without his father to turn to, and without his harried mother to call him to account, he'd nursed that same snake in his heart until finding Narnia.

All Edmund had ever had was cunning, and he'd used it—tried to—to claw open a place for himself in this world, so fresh with possibility and unexplored riches. He'd wanted _something_ for himself, a prize of his own—wanted it so fiercely that he'd been ready to exchange his family for it. He'd wanted to prove that he was the best at something, the most successful, the one everyone else looked to. To conquer, to win, to stand above others.

But when you conquered everything, what was left to you? Especially when, as Jadis would, you lived forever?

 _How sad you are,_ he thought, watching the cruelty—the emptiness—in her eyes. _How sad that I could have been in your place._

 _Yes, Son of Adam,_ said Aslan in his head.

 _Can't she be turned from this, even now?_ Ed wondered.

The Lion made a sorrowful noise, somewhere between a purr and a growl. _No, Edmund. She has nothing left. That is why she devours. She seeks to fill that hole inside her with distractions from what she's made of herself. When I ended her at Beruna, I sought to give her the only peace she might find, so far gone. Her people tore her out of that and returned her to the world. I do not believe she wanted it. Her hatred is a suit of armor, protecting nothing._

Edmund opened his mouth to say something aloud, but stopped. As he watched Jadis glare at him, he stood up straight and tall. At last, the boy inside him stood tall too.

He no longer feared her. He no longer had to. In a wash of clarity, he realized what he now had to do.

Aslan gave a great resounding purr that warmed Ed through. _Well done._

He felt the Lion leave him. He and Jadis were alone now, but of the two of them in this cabin, he was certain the Witch was the only one who felt it.

She paced toward him once more, until she had him almost pinned against the wall. "You will not fight me?" Her fingers flicked restlessly, as if seeking her wand.

He shook his head, still without ferocity, but now with an air of compassion that he couldn't hide even as it surprised him. "I see no point, Jadis."

Her lashes fluttered. He wondered if it was the first time in centuries that anyone had dared call her familiar, let alone speak to her in a tone of anything less than terror. Her cold eyes flickered between his own eyes and his mouth. She traced his lips with her fingers, looking almost disappointed.

An instant later, the frozen mask of her hatred was back in place, as if no other expression had ever existed. "You are as weak as the rest of them." She whirled toward the door.

As she laid her hand on the latch, Edmund almost regretted speaking, because he knew she'd take the bait. "You're not interested, then, in the riches _The Phoenix_ has amassed in more than a year?"

She turned back. "Why would I be?"

"Ruling a country takes a great deal of wealth. Ruling a world ... probably more, I'd guess." He angled his head. "A lot of that gold started out being yours."

"There's plenty of time for that after I've leveled Cair Paravel to its very foundation," she spat, then turned back to the door.

"I don't doubt you'll do it," he said, "but to punch a hole from Cair to Anvard, you're going to need an army on the ground." She turned to him once more, and he shrugged. "From there, it's only a matter of time to fight through Archenland into Calormen, or spread west to Telmar over the mountains, or north to Ettinsmoor. Connect your allies, build reliable channels for orders to pass through unfriendly country. Foster local support. All of that takes gold."

She smiled like a child with a new toy. "You _have_ grown."

He met her gaze, steady and unflinching. "It seems I have."

He felt a shiver inside him, an echo of Asha's fear as she sensed him about to leap off the edge of the abyss. _No fear,_ he reminded himself. This was what he'd been toiling for all his years in Narnia. This was the lesson Aslan had taught him, the lesson he'd been whispering in Ed's ear every day since the Battle of Beruna. That not only could Edmund make good on past wrongs, he could turn those injuries into the sword and shield that would protect his country and loved ones, even when he was weaponless with his worst enemy staring him in the face. He could forgive himself, because he had never been, and would never become, the creature standing before him now.

The guilt that had been on Edmund's shoulders for more than half his life vanished, like smoke, like magic. He approached the White Witch slowly, still watching for her to withdraw her wand but doubting she would. He knew her. He could almost guess her every move, and the sensation was powerful and heartbreaking. She would never learn and grow and bear children and love and get old and die. She had made a prison of herself.

Stopping before her, he looked her in the eye. The traitor's lie fell easily from his lips. "You have the rest of your life, Jadis. Why are you in a rush to finish this when we both know how it will end? And I ... I have learned when to stop struggling."

Her cold eyes roved over his face—searching for treachery?—and then she smiled again. "Show me where you've hidden the treasure."


	29. Tangled Web

Van knew exactly where the White Witch would be hiding Edmund, because any captain worth his rations kept his valuables where he slept.

Working his way astern, and doing his best to keep low, Van listened to snatches of conversation from the Witch's crew.

"—got him trussed like a pig for roasting, most like," said a gruff voice.

"Or worse," cackled another voice. "I hope it's worse."

The first voice joined in the laughter.

"Shouldn't we get after those other ships?"

"She ain't gave the order, barmy. You want to go doing stuff she ain't said so, that's your own neck."

"I can't believe they shoved off without him. A king, and all."

"Pirates," said the second voice, as if that explained everything. "We got sense to know when to cut our losses, eh? He ain't ever coming out of that cabin." Both crewmen laughed again.

Well, that confirmed Van's suspicions. He pulled his hat (a bit worse the wear for its swim, he thought wryly) down low over his eyes, then slipped around a capstan and toward a back stairwell. But as he glimpsed the deck over a group of water casks, he stopped short.

Edmund and the White Witch were walking the deck together. She drifted along close beside him, pale and shimmery like pearls, ignoring the crew when they gaped at her. One of the crewmen said something in Calormene which, by the tone, Van took as an oath to his god. The other, an ogre, just stared with his mouth hanging open.

Van stared too, forgetting where he was. Edmund leaned close to the Witch as they stood at the port rail, speaking too low for even Van to hear. The captain didn't seem to mind the way the Witch brushed against him. He neither stepped away nor acknowledged it, gesturing instead over the rail to the flat grey waters beyond. Then the Witch looked at him, flirtatious, with an underlying note of unmistakable greed, the way a courtier did when mooning after a rich lord. Van had seen it so many times growing up on Narrowhaven that it made him sick. And Edmund reacted just the way all those lords did: he stepped a bit closer to her, inviting the advance with a considering look that made it clear he knew where such an action led.

 _What in Underland is this?_

Van had heard the Witch was able to ensnare others to do her bidding, even when they were unwilling. But Edmund had faced her before.

Did that make him less susceptible to her power ... or more so?

Van looked back to the Witch, from the long, pale hair piled on top of her head, down a slender neck, and over that sweeping, luminous dress. His dream came back to him in stark precision—of Edmund the boy, facing down the Witch, and then his premonition of Edmund the man, using a magical spear of ice—the Witch's wand—to strike someone down.

Fury filled Van's chest so full he could scarcely breathe. What was Edmund playing at? Just where the hell did he stand in this war? One minute, he pretended at piracy. The next, he confessed to being a Narnian king. And the very next, he could be found chumming it up with Jadis. Either he was a very, _very_ good liar—enough to fool even the Faelings—or there was a whole lot more to this mess than Van had ever wanted to know.

For a few minutes he simply stood there, clench-fisted, unsure what to do. He'd given his word and his oath to Edmund. His word—the last unspoiled thing he had to his name, the one thing he'd never broken, never tarnished. His chest tightened further. _I really am rotten all through._

Fine, then. If he weren't acting for the captain, he'd just have to start acting on his own selfish interests like the scoundrel he was.

Grimly, he readjusted his grip on his sai and continued aft. The back stair was empty. The hold, nearly so, but Van almost had a moment of trouble when an ogre spotted him and started to raise an alarm. He stabbed the ogre without a second thought and continued deeper into the stacks of cloth, bags of grain, and crates of what would surely be stolen goods. He ignored these.

Somewhere in this mess, he would find the bilge that pumped water out of the hold, and then he'd jam it and sink this floating bucket of lies into the ocean. Lucy was right.

Piracy, for all its flaws, was honestly dishonest.

With eyes well-accustomed to dim light (How had he not noticed all his useful hereditary perks before?), Van crept along through the lashed stacks of cargo.

A low snort reached its ears. Then a deep, sibilant voice. "Shhhhhut up, or I'll eat you sssssooner."

Another snort, and a scuffle.

"Leave him alone, you overgrown crocodile, or I'll peck your last eye out," snapped another voice—and that one, Van recognized.

Arrow.

Van slipped faster through the stacks of cargo, then jerked to a stop as he caught an overpowering, pungent scent like old, shed snakeskin. Choking, covering his nose with an arm, he peered around the edge of a barrel of apples.

Van considered himself a reasonably brave individual, and not a very pious one. He'd defied his share of death in his long and colorful career in piracy (and Edmund had joined him for some of that, he reminded himself with a sneer). But when he caught sight of what lay at the end of the hold, he shot back behind the barrel with a whole list of prayers on the tip of his tongue. And for the first time in forty-odd years, he found himself wishing he'd never left the boring, comparative safety of Narrowhaven.

\- # -

Peter trotted on Onyx toward Cair Paravel, the fastest pace he dared take his troops. Night was coming on, but they couldn't afford to halt. They would be exhausted as it was by the time they arrived, worn down by battle and travel. A trip from Cair to the Witch's castle took no more than a day or so, unencumbered by others. With several hundred troops in tow, some injured past the point of traveling under their own power, their march had been three days and counting.

But the Stag who had returned to their encampment after reporting to Cori had brought with him distressing news: Cair was under attack already.

Susan was under attack. Aidan was under attack.

Onyx must have sensed Peter's unease, because he snorted and stepped up his pace a bit. Peter laid a hand on his neck to urge him to slow back down. "My fault," he told the unicorn.

"Saris will guard them with his very life, sire," Onyx said, glancing back.

Peter gave a bleak nod. Sometimes he thought the unicorn could read minds, among his other talents, but Onyx had never indicated so. Maybe it was just because they'd fought together for so many years. "I hope it doesn't have to get to that point," he told Onyx.

A flutter in the air made Peter look behind him. Salvia glided toward him along the column of soldiers. "The chest is secure, sire. No one is interfering with it."

"Good," Peter said, sparing a look for the wagon trundling along with their column. In that chest was his last-ditch hope for stopping the White Witch's army from overrunning Cair Paravel. Getting it had taken hours of their precious time. Keeping it from sight—even his own—was the worst of the problem. Even now, he thought he could hear it whispering to him to unlock the chest and take the prize within in his hands.

Had he been wrong to take the golden book from the Witch's cursed treasure trove? It had been so easy after all—a pair of gloves, so he didn't touch its surface and succumb to the curse of greed laid on her treasure. Too easy. It had been harder to slip away from his troops and get into her ruined castle unnoticed. No one had set eyes on the book but him. Everyone was curious about the chest's contents, but not even Oreius had dared to question him. It hadn't escaped Peter's attention, though, that the stern old centaur had left others at the Witch's castle so that he could return to Cair at Peter's side.

Centaurs had a talent for reading the future in the stars. Peter looked up and saw a few of the brighter stars beginning to show in the evening sky. Did Oreius see victory at the end of their battle ... or death?


	30. Healer How To Hitch A Ride In Narnia

Van swallowed hard and peered back around the apple barrel.

Curled into a corner, with a heavy iron-and-leather yoke around its neck and chest, was something Van had never thought to see in all his life. Indeed, the report was that they were all extinct in Narnia.

A dragon.

It was small, to be sure—not twice Arrow's size, but Van couldn't be sure if that meant it was young, or ...

... starving.

The creature's ribs were so painfully apparent under its scaled hide that Van felt sorry for it. Its confined, ungroomed reek nearly gagged him. One of its eyes was missing, and the upper and lower lids of that sunken, hollow socket bore an unhealed gash. The other eye glared steadily and hungrily at the griffin, its gleaming iris the color of ... amber? Rubies? Emeralds? Van couldn't be certain. It seemed the eye kept changing. _How beautiful,_ he thought.

If he'd known anything of dragons besides their apparent extinction, he might have stopped looking in its eye that instant. But the dragon had noticed him (being very attentive of motion, as most of its species was), and it now beckoned him closer with that gaze. Every dragon was skilled at charming prey, and Van didn't even realize it as he came out from behind the barrel and approached the beast.

"Van?" Arrow said. Then, though Van hardly heard it and certainly paid it no notice, Arrow called louder. "Van! _Van!_ " Chains rattled.

"Stop, stop!" whispered a third voice. "The guard will hear you!"

The dragon's forked tongue flicked, and he gave Van his full attention, his wings folding and unfolding in the cramped space in a mesmerizing rhythm. "Yesssss, oh, yesssss. Here'sssss one who isssssn't afraid to approach me." His tongue flicked out again, between teeth near as long as the points of Van's sai. The delicate nostrils at the end of his snout flared, and he snaked his long neck from side to side. "Come, come. Sssssee what'sssss here, little sssssnack."

Van couldn't disobey that musical voice. He stepped closer, closer.

A flurry of motion sounded at Van's right. Arrow pushed into his path with a shriek at the dragon, who lunged forward and snapped viciously. Van tumbled backward and landed hard on his rear. He glared past the furious griffin, who hissed something unintelligible at the dragon.

The dragon gave a low, musical chuckle that floated through Van's brain and dissolved all rational thought. "Feathered nuisssssance." He caught Van's eye. "Come, little sssssnack. Don't mind them."

"N-No, no, no!" cried the third voice. "Stop, please stop, or they'll come and we'll all die!" Something large and smelling of horse bounded in front of them both, thin and trembling.

The dragon snapped at it, and with a terrified whinny, the creature pounced backward against Arrow's side. More chains rattled, and the two pulled back from the dragon as far as a pair of heavy manacles on their feet would allow. Arrow shuffled the creature under his wing like an oddly feline mother hen.

The dragon chuckled again, but Van looked up at last to the pale, dappled horse that had intervened.

No, not a horse.

Another thing that Narnia was supposed to have forgotten.

Van stared dumbly at the tattered wings sprouting from the creature's back. Narnia hadn't seen a winged horse since ... well, since the tales of the world's birth.

The beast plucked a feather from its own wing and pushed it at Van. "Tie it in your hair, or to your necklace if you have one. It has to lie against your skin."

"Why?" Van mumbled, still groggy.

Arrow clicked his beak. "Do it, you ridiculous land-plodder, or we'll spend all night keeping you from offering yourself up as that lizard's next lunch."

The dragon growled, menacing, but now with a note of grouchy resignation. Van took the powdery grey feather and braided it quickly into a lock of his hair, so that it rested against his neck.

In a rush, his fogged brain cleared. He scrambled to his feet, with his forgotten sai raised toward the dragon now glaring hatefully at them. "What's that all about?" he demanded.

"My kind are immune to poisons and charms," said the winged horse. "Our feathers are proof against it."

"As the crew of this cursed boat has found," Arrow muttered, indicating the places where the winged horse was missing some feathers. He clicked his beak again with outrage. "Plucked him without so much as a 'May I!' "

The winged horse bobbed his head at Van. "I'm Quill." He eyed the dragon as if he were still convinced it might try to attack again, but all three creatures were chained to iron bolts in the hull, far enough apart to prevent them reaching one another too easily ... but close enough for discomfort.

Van looked to Arrow. "How are you not ... ?"

"Mesmerized by his wiles?" Arrow finished with a sarcastic tone. The dragon gave a long hiss and turned his back on them, curling his wings and tail around himself until he lay in a supremely unconcerned ball. "My people and his have been less than friendly all our existence. We have the Telmarines to thank for wiping most of those reptiles out. While we," the griffin added with undeniable smugness, "seem to be flourishing."

The dragon eyed them over his shoulder, his one jewel-like iris gleaming in the gloom. "More of you to feed me, once I get out of thisssss ssssstinking tub. _You_ three wouldn't be enough to pick my teeth, all together."

"I doubt you'll manage it," Arrow said, rattling the manacle around his paw. "Locks," he said to Van.

Van carefully stowed his sai in their sheaths, then tilted his head back the way he'd come. "I've tipped my weapons with poison. If everyone's got horsefeathers, how come I dropped an ogre like a stone back there?"

"Not everyone," Quill said. "Just _her_."

Van knew exactly who Quill meant, but the winged horse seemed to let words out in a rush like a bursting dam. "She comes down to feed that— _that_ ," Quill said, looking fearfully at the dragon, who had begun rubbing at his injured eye with a forearm as if he had forgotten them. "People, animals, spoils of battle. Anything. She took some of my feathers to keep him from doing that ... stare thing ..." Quill shivered. "But she keeps him h-h-hungry."

"So she can loose him on Cair, no doubt," Arrow filled in.

"We've got to get off this ship," Van said, searching his pouches. "Can you two fly?"

"I think so," Quill said, while Arrow nodded. "But it won't do us much good. She'll shoot us down as soon as we get into the air."

Van pulled his herbal and a small leather wallet from a pouch at his belt. "Then we need a big distraction. And by big, I mean huge." He started toward the dragon with purpose in his step.

"What are you _doing_?" Arrow and Quill cried together.

The dragon raised his head and studied Van with the same curiosity one gave to an unknown insect.

"Your eye's bothering you, yes?" Van said, holding up his herbal.

"What'sssss it to you?"

Without replying, Van unwrapped the herbal and withdrew his bloodweed. The dragon's nostrils flared, and his one good eye focused on Van with gleaming interest. Whether it was the herbal, or the dragon was still picturing him as food, Van didn't want to know. "You'll starve if you stay locked up in here. Even I can't see doing that to you."

The dragon's head jerked upward as he approached. "What'sssss in thisssss for you?"

"You are what you are," Van said. He tore a long scrap of cloth from his collection of bindings. "If I heal you and set you loose, you can eat anything but us. Got it?"

The dragon's eye narrowed, and he stared at Van with suspicion. His one-eyed gaze landed on the scar on Van's cheek. "No human'sssss ever ssssshown favor to a dragon in all of Narnian hissssstory."

"I'm not human," Van said.

"What are you, sssssnack?"

"Someone else who is what he is." He shook the rest of his bloodweed into the bandage and raised it with a look that he hoped meant _Eat me, and you'll never escape._

The dragon gave a low, unsettling growl and lowered its head. Behind them, Arrow and Quill made nervous noises. Quickly (he still wasn't sure if the dragon weren't picturing him as lunch), he tied the bandage around the beast's head, over its missing eye.

The dragon gave a little snort, and hot wind puffed in Van's face. "Better," the dragon said in a tone of surprise.

"How did it go missing?" asked Van.

"The witch took it out with a ssssstone knife. Blinded and captured me." He growled again, and this time his remaining eye glowed red. "Too bad witchesssss tassssste awful."

"Yeah," Van agreed, opening his wallet to remove his lock-picking kit. "If she didn't, I'd ask you to eat her first."

Amid loud protests from Quill and Arrow, Van picked the locks chaining the dragon by its yoke to the hull of the ship. He then turned and freed Arrow and Quill from their manacles.

Behind him, the bony dragon gave a long, satisfied growl and opened its mouth wide. "Look out!" Arrow shouted as that toothy maw lowered toward Van.

Van gave a strangled yelp as he was jerked off his feet. The smell of brimstone stung his nose. The dragon flipped him into the air by his coat. He just missed hitting his head on the ceiling beams, then landed with a grunt on the dragon's back. He had sense enough to grab the handles of the dragon's yoke just before the beast burst through a cargo hatch and into the air. Wood splintered and went flying, and Quill and Arrow rushed up after them.


	31. Fight And Flight

" _I hate to flyyyyyyy!"_ Van shouted, clinging to the handles on the dragon's yoke.

The beast gave a long, low laugh. "Too bad I don't." He surged still higher, his great leathery wings lifting them through the air with rhythmic whooshes. Wind whistled through Van's hair and tugged at the tricorne hat jammed onto his head. He stole a look at the water far below. The dragon could drop him, and he'd splatter into pieces like an overripe melon.

 _Back to business!_ he reminded himself frantically. Crew had scattered the moment they exploded from belowdecks. Once they understood what had happened, they ran for a gun turret on the ship's bow.

"Get behind the sails!" Van shouted. "They're gonna shoot!" But the dragon flew straight at the turret, which spun toward them. Van flattened himself against the dragon's back with a groan of resignation.

The turret spat crossbow bolts one after another. Van swore and ducked closer to the dragon's body, then realized the beast was losing altitude. "What are you _doing_?" he screamed. He had jammed his cheek against the dragon's neck. Its hide stank even in the wind. Then he realized every one of the missiles bounced off the dragon's hide without once piercing it. Even one that should have torn a hole in the dragon's wing merely skidded off and fell into the ocean.

There was an enormous sucking sound, like a bellows gulping air. And then, _whoosh_. Fire poured from the dragon's mouth, so hot that Van's face burned. The front of the ship burst into flame. The screams of the crew could be heard as they descended.

The dragon landed on the ship's bow, sucked air again, and roared so loud Van's ears rang. He spat fireballs, _fwoosh-fwoosh_ , and watched the men scamper like a cat toying with prey. His chest rumbled deeply. " _That_ wasssss sssssatisssssfying. And _now_." He jumped, and the ship rocked and creaked so loud Van thought the bow would shatter.

More missiles fired at them—crossbows, axes, arrows, even hammers and winches pulled from ship's work. Nothing harmed the dragon. The crew fired again, closer and closer to Van on the dragon's back.

From the air, Arrow and Quill swooped down, striking men too slow to escape with claws and sharp hooves. The dragon snapped at a Calormene sailor, then stomped forward and swallowed the man whole. Then another, and another. Van grimaced and thanked his luck that it wasn't him.

And then a shrill, ferocious shout—the White Witch. "The eyes, you fools! Aim for its eyes!"

A sailor aimed a bow and arrow at the dragon's head. The shot whizzed past, too close. He aimed again.

From out of nowhere, a hag gave a rattling hiss that surged down Van's spine. A bolt of white light shot from her hand and struck the sailor. The hapless man flew backward and slammed against a barrel, then went still.

Yaré.

A shout of relief stuck in Van's throat, but before he could release it, the White Witch pulled something from her skirts—a wand. She pointed it at the hag, and in a flash, Yaré was lost in a splash of water. "No!" Van screamed.

The Witch pointed her wand at Van. His throat went dry.

The dragon spewed flame again. The Witch was forced to dart aside, her concentration broken. The beast snapped at the crew, then stomped across the deck toward the Witch.

Edmund sprang into the dragon's path with a wicked-looking crossbow in his hands. The dragon growled and lunged.

"No!" Van shouted, pulling back on the yoke handles even as he doubted it would make a difference. "Not him!"

The dragon growled louder. "You sssssaid _anything_."

"Not him!" Van repeated. Edmund fired the crossbow, and the bolt whistled past the dragon's head. "Get him up here!"

Another growl, this time clearly one of derision. _"Humansssss."_ He opened his jaws and lunged toward Edmund. For a moment, Van thought the dragon would ignore him and eat Edmund—but the beast clamped its teeth over the crossbow and flung Ed into the air just as he'd done with Van.

Ed gave a shout of surprise and landed on the dragon's back behind Van. He slipped backward, and Van just managed to grab his arm. "What is _this_?" Ed shouted.

"Our getaway," Van panted. "Let's go!" he shouted.

"No! Put me down!" yelled Edmund, but the dragon launched itself into the air again, this time over the mainsail, where it clawed a long slash through the sheet. It soared over the ship and into the air, out of range of the weapons. Arrow and Quill followed.

"Get off that thing's back!" Arrow called. "Slide! I'll catch you!"

The dragon hissed at the griffin, but otherwise ignored it, flapping toward the east. "No, this way!" Van called, tugging on the yoke handles. "West! We need to find our ship, _The Phoenix_!"

Another hiss. "You're awfully demanding, for a sssssnack."

"Land us there, and you can go anywhere you like after that," Van called.

"I can go anywhere I like _now_ ," the dragon rumbled.

Van glared in the beast's one eye. "You'd all three still be stuck in that stinkhole at the bottom of her ship if it weren't for me! And Yaré—she died for this!"

"Who, the hag?" the dragon said.

"Yes, the hag! She was ..." He paused, then added, softer, "... my friend."

The dragon gave a long, thoughtful rumble. "Ssssstrange company you keep." But he swooped westward.

"And getting stranger," Van snapped.

"You have to send me back," Edmund called.

Van arched around. "You're cracked! I'm not going anywhere near that Witch again!"

"I had it under control!" Ed shouted.

" _Control!_ You call chumming around with that Witch _control_?"

"I was getting her away from _The Phoenix_ , you idiot! Now she's going to give chase!"

And then Van understood. His jaw fell open. Shaking out of his astonishment, he slapped the dragon's shoulder. "How fast are you?"

Deep laughter rumbled through the dragon's body. "Now you're ssssstarting to think like a dragon." He pumped his wings and shot forward through the sky.

Edmund and Van gave involuntary screams, and Quill and Arrow raced through the air after them, westward. Van's hat blew off his head and tumbled into the ocean.

\- # -

Lucy had spent the better part of the past week looking behind _The Phoenix_ for the Witch's ships, or ahead, where once they reached it, she expected to see nothing left on the sea cliff where Cair perched. They had met no resistance as they and the Selbarani ships traveled toward Narnia. Indeed, it seemed nothing could catch them, and she began to see how Edmund had managed his year-long raid on the sea.

The lookout in the crow's nest called out, and Lucy rushed to the bow with her spyglass.

Her heart shot into her throat as she saw what the lookout had seen. Far ahead of them was the coast of Narnia. The sky overhead was black with smoke.

 _Susan. Saris. Cori. Peter. Aidan. Oh, Susan's baby!_ Lucy stifled a cry of anguish and spun around, looking skyward. They had seen no sign of Arrow—or Vandelar—since leaving them where they'd encountered the Witch's forces. And even now, the only thing interrupting the pale-grey sky was the darker black of that smoke. As _The Phoenix_ drew closer to Narnia's shore, Lucy saw four Calormene ships anchored near the beach and pier. Even from this distance, she could see the signs of battle.

Her stomach ached. Was she ready to handle this, all alone?

She had no choice. Edmund was gone. Van was gone. Aslan himself had given her no sign of how to proceed.

She took a deep breath and sought the quiet deep within, past all her doubts and all the noise of everything that had happened since she first stepped through the wardrobe into Narnia.

And there, she found the same warmth she had always felt in the Lion's presence. _Courage, dear one,_ whispered a voice.

She lifted her right hand, then traced the etching of a sunrise burned into her palm. Warmth poured into her and washed away her fear. She raised her head. "Ready the cannons."


	32. Devil At The Door

_BOOM. BOOM. BOOM._

From the hall, Susan watched in terror as a brace of centaurs and satyrs barricaded the main gate of Cair Paravel with their own bodies. They had reinforced the iron gate outside with a heavy wooden one behind it. The wood was dryad elderwood, unbreakable by force alone—but the Witch's army had discovered that, and were now pounding at the barriers with flame as well as battering rams. Already, Susan knew from lookouts' reports that the iron gate had burst.

She shook, but not with fear for herself. She pressed a hand against her belly and whispered a prayer. _Please, please hold._ Saris had forbidden her to fight, but he had vanished over the castle wall long since, lending his strength and magic to the soldiers fighting desperately outside.

Never had she felt more helpless than now.

 _BOOM. BOOM. BOOM._ The wooden gate creaked and held, but Susan smelled smoke, and she could see the orange glow of fire through the straining crevice between the doors. It had never been a matter of if the Witch's army would attack ... but _when_.

Right, then.

She gritted her teeth and ran for her rooms. There, she snatched up her bow and arrows, and the ivory horn Father Christmas had given her so many years ago. Saris might not want her to fight, but neither would she stand by and let invaders mow their way into the castle without doing her part to stop them.

She fell back to an upper staircase overlooking the main hall, and took position behind a stone statue of an eagle. The statue's spread wings would shield her from attack. Nodding approval, she nocked an arrow and prepared for the worst.

And then the labor pains began.

\- # -

Gasping with exertion, Peter swung his sword again. His attention was on the orc jabbing at him with its spear, but in his mind's eye he saw only the fiery towers of Cair Paravel. He hadn't taken a decent breath since his first glimpse of the burning castle. Were Susan and Aidan still safe?

"Look out!" called a satyr.

Peter spun just in time to avoid a plunging ax. The satyr attacked the minotaur behind Peter, and the pair fell away fighting.

Peter turned back to his own problems. The orc was faster and less tired. Peter was flagging, his steps slower and slower. He had done all he could to bolster his army's strength and courage, but they were at the end of their stamina.

Narnia was losing.

The enemy had brought catapults, and heavy stones flew through the air. Two smashed into the outer wall of the castle and sheared away the face of the stone. Peter's army couldn't even get close enough to the gates to reinforce the guard fighting desperately to keep the enemy back. So far away, so horribly far away. _Aslan, help us._

Where was the Lion? How could he not come when they needed him so badly? Did he not know they'd lost Lucy? Did he not know they were about to lose this war to the Witch's forces? What had they been fighting for all along, if only to succumb to Jadis now? What was the point to all this battle?

Lucy, gone. Edmund, gone. Susan, about to have a baby and facing the sacking of Cair Paravel ... and Peter, helpless to save them.

He had failed.

Despair crushed at his heart. His breath came shorter and shorter. His lungs burned. His steps slowed as the orc swung again and again. _Keep going,_ he begged himself. _Keep going, keep going. Push toward the castle._ But the orc's every swing came closer and closer to taking a piece of him with it.

Salvia swung into sight overhead and clawed at the orc's unprotected head. The hawk raked his talons across the orc's scalp, distracting it enough for Peter to dispatch it ... but another took its place. This one was bigger and faster. Peter dodged and lunged with all his strength and reach. And then a lucky swoop with the beast's ax handle took him clean off his feet.

Peter slammed to the ground, and what little wind he had left his lungs in a whoosh. His vision blurred. Pain from dozens of injuries flared through his body. Even the trampled snow couldn't cool the burning agony raging all over from his bones out.

The orc roared with laughter and slammed its booted foot into his ribs. Peter groaned and crumpled, seeing stars. "Narnian scum!" the orc bellowed. "You're meat for the troops!"

"The king is _mine_!" growled a voice. A man shoved the orc aside with a vicious sweep of his weapon.

Peter's eyes locked on the man's, and he recognized the Nazi who had followed them to Narnia almost two years ago, through the Wood between the Worlds. He sucked in a breath and struggled to get to his feet. _"You!"_

The Nazi stomped on Peter's chest, and pain flashed through Peter's ribs again as he slammed back down. He moaned and tried to twist the man's booted foot, but his fingers were so cold, his arms so tired ...

"I have no interest in prolonging this," the man said. He aimed his weapon—a bayoneted German rifle—and pointed it at Peter's head, then aimed with cold precision.

A snarl drew both men's attention. To their right, fighters scattered back to reveal Cori, pelting toward them with fury in her eyes. She leaped into the air in mid-run and shifted on the fly into her werewolf form with a roar. She plowed into the Nazi, and the two went tumbling away.

Peter flung himself onto his feet. "Cori, he has a—"

The gunshot cracked through the air. The werewolf yelped and stumbled back from the Nazi.

Heartsick, Peter watched the werewolf—his wife, the mother of his son, _oh, Lion, help him_ —stare at the Nazi with shock and pain in her eyes. Blood oozed through the chinked chain mail covering her stomach. She staggered and fell, and as she lost the hold on her werewolf form, she shifted to human again.

The Nazi's teeth drew back from his lips in an ugly sneer, and he aimed the rifle at Cori.

Peter forgot everything. Forgot his fears, his doubts, his worries, his fatigue, all of it. He threw everything he was into Aslan's paws, and slammed a lid over his hesitation. A roar surged up through him, part his own voice, and he could have sworn, part Lion. He raised his sword and charged.

Rhindon struck true, a clean blow through the Nazi's back. The man crumpled on top of Cori. Peter dropped to his knees and shoved the dead man off her. "Cori, Cori!"

She grunted. "Healing ... some. The shift ... it helps," she whispered, but blood dribbled from her lips. She coughed and sucked in two, three, four breaths.

Fighting for calm, Peter pulled up the chain mail to reveal a jagged, bleeding wound in his wife's belly. The sight of so much blood brought it home. He pressed a trembling hand over the wound, and the blood warmed his chilled fingers. "No," he whispered.

Her lids fluttered half-closed ... then her eyes opened wide again and focused on something over his shoulder. A growl gurgled up from her throat.

Peter lunged around and took down the two minoboars stalking him before they even got the chance to attack. _"Griffin!"_ he screamed, then slammed Rhindon's point into the trampled snow. He gathered Cori into his arms and stood.

"I will ... be fine," Cori gasped out. "Let me stay."

A pale-feathered griffin landed before them. Peter hurried to push Cori onto its back. "The castle. Hurry! Get her to Susan!"

The beast swooped off with hardly a pause, leaving Peter standing there, staring after them, with his wife's blood on his shaking hands.

\- # -

Dragons, being magical, were able to do many things Edmund had never considered, but now found dead useful. Among them, the ability to slow or speed time for their own purposes, so that while others never recognized the change, it enabled the beasts to travel anywhere in a matter of minutes. This, he learned, was partly responsible for the way time never ran as parallel or consistently in Narnia as that in other worlds. They reached the coast of Narnia almost as soon as Van had asked the dragon to get there.

He heard the cannons even before they got close enough to see the flash of artillery fire. The two Selbarani ships and _The Phoenix_ were side-on with four Calormene corsairs, and firing rapid volleys. "This is going to get messy," Van muttered.

"Sssssure you want to land in that?" the dragon chuckled, still speeding toward the ships with Arrow and Quill riding the wake of his wind.

"Feel free to stick around for dinner, dragon," Van snapped. "Just remember which ones are on our side."

"Maddoken," the dragon rumbled.

"What?"

"Figure you ssssshould know at leassssst my name before you kill yourssssself for thisssss."

As they approached _The Phoenix_ , Van slid down the dragon's side until he dangled in midair by the beast's claw. "Maybe I've finally got something worth dying for."

Edmund swung down and the dragon caught him in his other claw. "Ready?" he called as they approached _The Phoenix_. Crew of all the ships had noticed them now. Some ran for catapults. The dragon drifted over _The Phoenix._ _"Now!"_ Ed shouted.

Van dropped safely away and slipped down a sail, where he caught a bit of rigging and slid to a stop. But at that moment, a volley of fireballs soared through the air at the dragon's head, forcing him to turn aside. Edmund swung wildly and plummeted through the air over open water. He gasped out a breath and his stomach plunged as he fell.

A cloud of leaves rushed upward and solidified into a mass of vines. Edmund collided with the makeshift slide and skidded down to the rigging of _The Phoenix_.

The vines reformed into Asha, clinging to the shrouds beside him. "Hi, beautiful," Ed grinned.

She flashed a return smile. Together, they rushed down the netting and dropped to the deck of _The Phoenix_.

The minotaur who was second-in-command aboard the ship spotted him. "Now that's an entrance what I ain't seen yet."

"Get ready. The Witch will be here any minute," Ed said. All around them, crew were rushing back and forth to defend the ship.

Van dropped to the deck a few meters away. "I thought the dragon could outrun her."

"She has the Dreadken with her, Van. Don't forget they have magic other than fear-spells. They'll speed up that ship, now they've got something to rush to."

"Edmund!" Lucy rushed across the deck and collided with him in a hug. Then she whirled and found Van standing behind her. She took one running step and stopped, her face alight with desperate relief, her arms half up as if to hug him also. Her face went red.

Ed spied the stricken look on Van's face—the worry—and then he realized what—who—his first mate had been talking about when he mentioned something worth dying for. Somewhere among the pounding of cannons and the madness of fighting the Witch's forces, Vandelar had fallen in love with Lucy.

Ed smiled, wondering. "Everyone as you were." He nodded to Asha, who nodded back and returned to her ship in a whirl of leaves. Edmund broke into a jog toward the cook's supply closet. The time had come to fulfill his promise to Aslan.

As he passed Lucy, he leaned in close to her ear. "Take a few minutes, sister. There are things more important than war."


	33. Showing His Colors

_Courage is fear holding on a minute longer._ \- General George S. Patton

\- # -

As soon as everyone's eyes stopped boring into the back of his head, Van pulled Lucy into an unobserved corner behind the rear stair of the ship. Even amid the blast of cannon fire and shouts of crew (and he really ought to be out there, helping the crew _not_ die), all he could focus on was her. "Are you all right?"

"You saved my brother's life," Lucy blurted out. Her eyes shone like sunlight on seawater.

"Hell with your brother, I'm asking about _you_."

But she went on talking. "Van, the dragon. Is he safe? Can we trust him? Where's Arrow?"

"Lucy."

"And that flying horse. Where did you—"

"Lucy."

"—find him? I've never seen—"

" _Lucy."_

"—a flying horse. Are they allies to—"

Van swooped down and kissed her soundly. She squeaked, then relaxed against him with gratifying warmth. When she drew back, still shining-eyed but thankfully silent, he studied her from head to foot, unable to keep the concern out of his voice. "Are you all right?" he said again.

Her face fell, and for a moment his heart stopped beating as he wondered what injuries he couldn't see. But she said, "We're losing. We don't have enough fire power to do more than distract them from landing and attacking the castle."

"Fire power," he repeated, and realization dawned. What this battle needed was air support. He took her hand and towed her out from the corner.

Circling in the air above the enemy ships were Quill and Arrow. Whenever they found an opening, they streaked downward to attack an unprotected head or back. Maddoken was happily snapping up Calormene shipmen faster than his smallish reptilian body should have been able to consume them. Van put his fingers to his lips and whistled loudly.

And surprisingly, the first to respond was the dragon. He swung around, and as he wheeled toward _The Phoenix_ , Maddoken spat a long whoosh of flame, as if in afterthought, at the mast of the closest Calormene ship. The corsair burst into blazes. Crew aboard _The Phoenix_ and the Selbarani ships cheered. "More fun than I've had in two hundred yearsssss!" the dragon crowed.

Van leaped onto the starboard rail and pulled Lucy up after him. "Could use a ride!" he called.

Maddoken dove toward them, claws outstretched, with perhaps the most frightening grin Van had ever seen. Lucy yelped.

"Not on my watch, he doesn't," came Arrow's voice. The griffin whooshed past, and with his forelegs, swept Lucy from Vandelar's arms so fast, Van stared after them with dismay.

Arrow tossed Lucy into the air, and Van's heart stopped for the second time in ten minutes. Lucy dove gracefully through the air, like a bird, and landed neatly on the griffin's back as if she'd planned it her entire life. Van started breathing again. "Going to kill them both," he muttered, his gaze locked on the pair.

"Greetingsssss," Maddoken said cheerfully, scooping him up as he sailed past the railing. He drew back a foreleg to push Van onto his back.

"Awfully jolly about this, aren't you?" Van said peevishly.

"A healthy dossssse of food'll do that," said the dragon.

"Are you willing to help us finish this?"

"Prossssspect of more food? Anything you sssssay."

"How much flame have you got left?"

The dragon's laughter vibrated, deep and disturbing, through his body. "I'm full up. Why do you think we eat ssssso much? Food and fuel!" As gleeful as a child with a new trinket, the beast wheeled upward, over the mast of _The Phoenix_ , and down upon the Calormene ship on its other side.

Below, Van saw Edmund, already swinging the ship for the harbor. Turning back to the Calormene corsair below, he shouted, "Let them have it!"

Maddoken drew an enormous breath and engulfed the second corsair in flame. Then he folded his wings and plummeted like a stone, dodging as the attacking sailors catapulted anything they could lay hands on at his head. Van sucked his stomach back down and held onto the yoke for dear life. The dragon landed on the burning deck with as much unconcern as a child splashing in puddles. _Snap-snap-snap,_ he gulped down three sailors. _Poof-poof,_ he blew fireballs at the enemy crew.

 _Great landsliding Underland, what am I doing?_ Van thought madly. What would this wild beast do when there was no one left to eat? Would he turn on Van? _The Phoenix_? Lucy?

A lucky arrow sped past the dragon's head and grazed the edge of its missing eye socket. Maddoken gave the first shriek of agony, a horrifying sound like steel rending against steel, and reared back so that Van almost lost his seat. Grimly, he clutched the yoke handles again. Maddoken was a devastating force, true—but his aim was off because of that missing eye, as was his ability to see an attack from that side. "I'd be more help with something to shoot at them, you know!"

The pain-maddened dragon seized a Calormene sailor just aiming a bow and arrow at them, and scooped the whole works, man and all, toward Van. The Calormene teetered on the shoulder of the dragon's flapping wing with a look of stunned horror, but when he noticed his proximity to the dragon's head, it was all business. The man came at Maddoken's already-injured eye with a look of hatred.

Van launched himself off his perch at the Calormene, not even realizing what he was doing until he was sliding down Maddoken's shoulder into the front crook of his wing. Van jerked his sai from their sheaths, and on the upswing of Maddoken's wing, as it swept close to his head, he leapt at the Calormene, sai first, and plunged them home.

The Calormene tumbled away, bow, arrows and all, and Van followed. He stopped short as Maddoken caught him with his front claws. Swinging by his feet, Van stuffed his sai back where they belonged—sort of—and screamed, "A sling! A crossbow! Anything! Work with me!"

"Take your pick," the dragon snarled, and dangled him over a row of Calormenes trying again to shoot for Maddoken's eyes.

Van swung past a Calormene aiming a repeating crossbow at the dragon, and tore it from the man's hands. "Thank you!" He rounded the weapon at the row—aim, shoot, reload, aim, shoot, reload—then smashed it in the last man's face when it ran empty. He dropped it. "Any other ideas?"

But the ship was truly burning now, and Maddoken lifted him onto his perch again. They soared into the air. "Why don't _I_ be the weapon, and _you_ do the aiming?" the dragon said waspishly.

Van gripped the yoke handles as they directed themselves at the third Calormene ship. "Taken under advisement," he panted.

Arrow and Quill swooped in to flank them. A ball of flame catapulted past them from the ship's deck. Van gave a shout and ducked.

"Oil potsssss," the dragon sneered. "Amateursssss." He inhaled a deep breath as they approached the ship.

Then Van saw the gun turret on its front, spinning toward them. _Not again._ He leaned right, and the dragon angled with him, sensing the shift in balance.

A crossbow bolt whizzed past them from behind and struck the turret man square in the chest. The Calormene crumpled.

Arrow and Lucy pelted past, dodging a volley of fiery oil pots. "Get back!" Van shouted. "Go help Edmund!"

But she, Arrow, and Quill were already on to the last Calormene ship. The flying horse swooped low and dragged his hoof along the hull of the ship. Water sprang forth from the boards, and somewhere in the back of his mind, Van remembered a musty history lesson that the flying horses were able to strike springs with their hooves. _Good for you,_ he thought with fierce approval for the timid beast. _Sink that thing to the bottom of the ocean._

He leaned forward and slapped the dragon's neck. Maddoken blasted the sail with a spray of flame, spot on, and it went up like kindling. Van heard distant cheers from the allied ships below, and a startling warmth filled his chest. Cheering. For him. A scoundrel if ever there was one, riding an unpredictable juggernaut that might eat them next.

Then he saw the Witch's ship.

From thin air it materialized, right in the bay. Along the bow was a bright ring of flame. At first, Van thought it already afire, but he realized a line of catapults had been loaded with burning oil pots ... all of them aimed at _The Phoenix_ , still headed for the pier. "Shield _The Phoenix_!" Van screamed, leaning hard right.

The dragon swayed with him and soared over _The Phoenix_ just as a volley of oil pots sailed through the air. Van swore loudly and ducked as the missiles smashed against the dragon's fireproof body and outspread wings. Some of the burning oil sprayed Van's coat, and he was suddenly very glad to be wearing it. He swiped the flame out. "They'll reload! Another pass!"

But they were too late. Another row of catapults appeared behind the spent first row, already loaded, and they launched their ammunition into the air. Van watched in horror as the pots flew through the air and pelted _The Phoenix_. The ship roared into flame, instantly engulfed. Van's jaw dropped. _I thought it was invincible._

Far below, he saw sailors leaping off the ship into the water. Among them was Edmund, carrying a long spear.

The Witch's wand.

 _What are you doing!_ Van wanted to shout, but his captain was swimming for shore as fast as he could go.

Van turned Maddoken back to the Witch's ship. The dragon roared, hesitated, clearly not wanting to approach his former prison. "Now's your chance to pay her back!" Van hollered. "Keep that ship from docking!"

Behind the second row of catapults, a row of women in purple appeared. The Dreadken. He worried at once that their fear-spell would overtake him, but the expected terror didn't come. He remembered the feather around his neck and sent a mental thanks to Quill.

Maddoken had no such protection. The dragon roared and halted in midair. The loss of momentum upset Van's balance, and the two went spinning head over tail, down, down, down to the water. Van landed with a bone-shaking splash, and water closed over his head.


	34. Sacked

Edmund hauled himself out of the water onto Cair's pier, gasping as he pulled the wand up after him. His first look at the castle in well over a year, and it was burning.

Another ship lay at anchor on the pier—the _Splendour Hyaline_. Edmund raced past it and pelted up the slope past town. He knew—he _knew_ —he should have stayed and faced the White Witch, but he couldn't stop until he learned Peter and Susan's fate. Perhaps the first wrong tactical decision he'd made since he was ten years old. Certainly the most critically so. And yet he kept going.

The town was deserted and boarded up. Some of the storefronts had been forcibly smashed open, and their contents lay in the street. Ed ran on, slipping in mud and slush, disobeying the scream of his air-starved lungs. _I will keep my promise. I swear it. But I need to know if they're alive._

He raced past the edge of town and up the slope to the castle, keeping his wind only Aslan knew how. He was stopped short at the main gate by the first signs of battle.

A pair of orcs spotted him and broke from the pack attacking the oak doors. Without thinking, Ed tore Wandbreaker from its scabbard at his side. With Wandbreaker in his right fist and the ice wand in his left, he struck, _slash-slash_ , and cut down his enemies before they had the chance to draw his blood. The Lion must have been helping him. He could not fathom how he'd maintained his breath after the swim and run to get here.

More of the battering party noticed him, and suddenly a swarm of orcs and boggles came running at him. Edmund whirled, ducked, and lunged as they reached him, sometimes only escaping a blow by the swing of his forelock. _No fear. No fear,_ he chanted in his head. And it was as if his feet remembered the feel of Narnian soil, because even as he gasped for breath, he found himself faster, more agile.

A cloud of blue smoke appeared beside him. Jinn Saris materialized. "It is good to see you, brother," the Jinn said, firing spell after spell.

"Great to ... _be here_!" Ed panted, striking one orc with Wandbreaker as he blocked another with the wand. "Where's Peter?"

"Fighting in the field. Susan is inside."

"Why aren't you in there ... _protecting her_!" Ed lunged at a boggle and speared it cleanly with the wand.

In between launching magical bolts of lightning, Saris grinned. "You look like you might want help." His grin vanished, and he lunged behind Ed's back to throw another bolt at a pair of orcs who'd gotten behind them. The pair dropped, squealing, and the scent of charcoal filled the air. Ed gave the Jinn a grateful look.

Hoofbeats pounded toward them, followed by an outraged snarl Edmund would have known anywhere. "Stupid! Rock-headed! _Arse!_ "

Barton, his friend and battle charger, galloped toward them, mowing down invaders as he ran. Beside him raced Leina, with a look of rage on her face.

Ed crashed his sword against the blade of an oncoming orc. "Love you, too, Leina!"

Instantly her expression changed to delight, and she cheerfully plowed into a trio of boggles and decimated them.

As soon as Barton reached him, Ed sprang gratefully onto the horse's back. His legs ached, in spite of how good it felt to be back in Narnia. Now, how to get to Peter and open a path for him to the castle? And where in the world were Van and that dragon?

\- # -

"I saw him!" Lucy cried. "There! He fell there!" She pointed over Arrow's shoulder as they soared over Cair Bay.

But before they could approach, the dragon burst out of the sea with a snarl. In his claws was Vandelar. Lucy leaned forward, willing the griffin to speed toward him ... but it seemed Van and the dragon were arguing.

"I don't care what you sssssay, I'm not going over there again," the dragon sneered.

Van coughed so hard, seawater spilled out of his mouth. The dragon squeezed with his claws—Lucy winced, seeing it—but more seawater poured forth, and Van took a gulping breath so long and loud, she could hear it even from her distance. "I dislocated my knee!" he shouted. "What'd you get? A little fright? Look at you! Look at what you did to those ships!"

In disbelief, Lucy watched the dragon scoop Van onto his back again. They flapped higher, and Lucy stared from the burning Calormene ships to the bickering, unlikely pair arcing through the sky again.

A cloud of leaves billowed through the air beside her. "We have this," came Asha's voice. "We will hold them as long as we can. See to Edmund and Peter."

"Got it," Lucy said, and she and Arrow swerved off. But as they streaked landward, a cloud of beasts soared into the air from the Witch's ship.

Harpies. Dozens of them. "Arrow, we need to rally the griffins!"

Arrow lashed his tail. "I may follow Rook, after all." He drew a breath, then gave a long, screeching cry that rang in Lucy's ears. The sound bounced off the water and lingered, echoing, in the air.

As they flashed past the dragon, Lucy called, "Van! With me!"

The dragon swung toward them. Lucy fancied she could feel the heat of the beast's breath on Arrow's tail. What would the Narnians do when they saw _that_ coming?

She and Arrow streaked toward the castle. Below, she glimpsed the glass roof, and the peacock colors of the stained glass wall in the throne room of Cair Paravel. The throne room was nestled in the center of the castle proper, inaccessible if the gates were locked ...

Except by air.

Oh, no.

An enormous harpy, four times the size of its fellows, pelted past and hurled a giant burning cask of oil at the castle. The cask crashed through the glass roof, and an explosion ricocheted through the air. Arrow reeled, and Lucy with him. With a cry of dismay, Lucy watched the beautiful stained-glass wall shatter and collapse. Bricks crumbled. A nearby tower shuddered and fell.

Tears stung Lucy's eyes and froze as they streaked down her face in the cold wind. "Susan," she moaned.

A hot wind rushed forward past her, and with it, Van and the dragon. "You gonna let her do that?" Van called, fury plain in his voice. In midair, the dragon wrapped itself around the harpy queen, and the two tumbled over, screeching and snapping and flapping.

As she and Arrow drifted over the castle, she saw a battering ram puncture the main gate. A river of invaders poured inside. Lucy gathered herself and lifted her crossbow. The harpies surrounded them now, diving down to pluck sentinels off the castle battlements, then rising again to drop their prey to their deaths. All around it was madness, but Lucy's focus shrank to one harpy, and one crossbow bolt, at a time.

\- # -

Cori listened at the door of the safe room where she'd hidden with Susan. Once she arrived in the courtyard, she'd scented Susan—and her distress—and known exactly what was happening. She had escaped unseen and followed the scent to a hall in the depths of the castle. There, the scent trail stopped, magically impeded ... but Cori knew where Susan had gone. A secret wall halfway down the hallway disguised the entrance to a room outfitted with food, bedding, weapons ... and if need be, an escape tunnel underground to the sea.

Outside, Cori heard the faint sounds of battle. They had breached the castle doors, then.

Footsteps ran past. "Your Majesty! Your Majesty?" came the voice of Ruenilan, a dryad and one of the castle staff. Cori remained silent, holding her hand against the wound still in her belly. She didn't trust the dryad, hadn't for months. She had made her concerns known to Susan, but Susan said that if Ruenilan were a traitor, they might make use of her by "leaking" misinformation to her. Shrewd, that. Perhaps the reason they had lasted so long.

"Your Majesty?" the dryad called again. The voice faded.

Cori turned. Susan lay prone on the mattress in the corner, sweating and pale. "She won't hear you, anyway," Susan said. "Saris blocked sound from this room."

"I like to know who is coming," Cori answered. She approached the mattress and sat on its edge to draw up the front of her shirt and chinked mail. She reached for the bloody wound, then hesitated with guilt in her eyes. "Sorry."

Susan gave a dry laugh. "Do what you must, sister."

Cori gritted her teeth and dug her fingers into the wound. The wolf in her snarled in furious pain, but she pinched the slippery edge of the bullet in her fingertips and jerked it out. She dropped it with a metallic clatter on the floor, growling. She shapeshifted twice—werewolf, human, werewolf, human—and the wound began to mend.

Susan's gaze found the bloody bullet on the floor. "Guns?" she moaned. "Oh, Peter. I should be out there."

Still aching, Cori wiped her hands clean on a cloth and sank to the floor beside the mattress. "You should be here."

"They need all the help they can get. They need warriors. And here I am—" Susan bit off a moan of distress as another labor contraction hit her.

Cori dampened a cloth from the pitcher nearby and dabbed it on Susan's forehead.

When the contraction passed, Susan took a gasping breath. "—useless to them."

Cori stared at Susan's pale face, and the ache in her belly spread to her heart. "You are not useless, Susan. You are the woman I always wished to be."

Susan's eyes softened. "I can say the same for you."

Uncomfortable with the admiration in Susan's eyes, Cori poured a sip of water and held it to Susan's lips. When Susan finished drinking, Cori set the cup back down and sat on the edge of the mattress.

Susan bit off a moan as another contraction swamped her. When it passed, she said, "You should go. Defend the castle."

"I am right where I ought to be," Cori insisted. "I am certain you would have this child all on your own, but I believe I was fated to be wounded and sent here to you. Aslan knows what he is doing."

There was a long silence. Then Susan whispered, "Do you think he'll come?"

Cori laid her hand over Susan's, trying not to notice the difference. Blood under her fingernails, scratches on her knuckles. Susan's hands were lovely. Cori gave Susan's hand a squeeze. "I believe he's always here, sister."


	35. The Suspended Ax

Lucy and Arrow swerved through the air, dispatching harpies left and right. "I'm running out of bolts," she called, glancing at the last few remaining in the crossbow holster attached to Arrow's harness.

"You should go to ground combat, Your Majesty," Arrow called. "I will help Van against the aerial threat."

Squinting into the winter sun, Lucy aimed her crossbow and shot. A wounded harpy shrieked and dropped like a stone onto the castle battlements. Three bolts left. Two. One. She flung the empty crossbow at a harpy and stunned it. One of the castle archers shot it, and the creature plunged away. Lucy drew her short knife and scanned the ground for a good place to land.

Van and the dragon were still battling the harpy queen. The dragon had wrapped its tail around the beast's midsection and was squeezing like a python, while his jaws remained clamped on the beast's wing. The harpy could not angle her short neck to bite back, and her hind claws were trapped by the dragon's tail. The creature howled, and it and the dragon went tumbling toward the ground in a whirl of greens and greys.

"Down!" Lucy called.

Arrow streaked past a tower after them. Dragon and harpy crashed to the earth. The dragon spun away from the harpy queen and onto his feet, still snapping. Van leaped to his feet on the dragon's back and drew something from the many pockets on his coat. "Hold still!" he called, swaying.

The dragon stilled. Lucy watched in shock as Van flung what looked like a pointed throwing star. The tiny missile struck the harpy's breast, and as large as it was, it dropped at once.

"I could have eaten that!" the dragon snarled as Lucy and Arrow landed in the shadow of his wing.

"The menu's not clear yet," Van yelled. "Defend the gate!" He dropped back to his seat behind the yoke. The dragon lumbered forward with a growl of pleasure, its tail lashing and knocking unlucky raiders off their feet.

Arrow crouched and Lucy slipped off his back, knife outstretched, to dispatch an enemy archer aiming at Van. Then she saw the giant approaching.

It stomped toward the castle gate, swinging a double-bladed ax with an ugly, savage grin. Hapless Narnians scattered before it or were trampled. "Van, the giant!" she cried—but he and the dragon were turned away, busy attacking the stream of soldiers trying to get into the castle.

 _Aslan, Aslan, what do I do?_ she thought frantically.

Then she remembered her very first battle lesson. _Size is nothing,_ Peter had told her once. Then he'd tapped her knees with the flat of his sword. _If your enemy's so big you can't get a vital part right off, go for his legs. Find where he supports his weight. One good blow to the side of a man's knee, and he'll drop._

The backs of the giant's ankles were protected by enormous boots ... but his knees boasted only a ragged pair of linen pants. _Big,_ she thought, wide-eyed. _Too right, he's big._ "Arrow! His knees!"

The griffin's eyes gleamed, and she knew he understood. They launched into the air once more, arcing low around the giant. The creature gave a hideous roar and swung his ax at the fighters gathered before the gate. Lucy spotted Edmund and Saris among the Narnians, back to back, trying to stem the tide of enemy soldiers pouring toward them.

Occupied with the gate, the giant didn't notice as she and Arrow winged around him. It wasn't the first blow she worried about. It was the second one, after the giant realized his danger.

They neared the giant's legs, and the moment Arrow flew close enough, he stretched out his claws and slashed the back of the giant's knee. The giant roared and swung around with his enormous ax as they passed by. _Not deep enough,_ Lucy thought with frustration. Arrow's claws had hardly slashed the giant's trousers—but at least they'd distracted him from the gate.

The ax blade whooshed past them, skimming a few feather tips from Arrow's wing. They'd have to try again, and now they'd have to avoid the swings of that malicious steel.

Shrieks sounded overhead. From the southwest came a flight of griffins. A dozen of them angled for the cloud of harpies still assaulting the castle from above. Another half dozen flew to Arrow, circling the giant until the creature was batting furiously at them as a human would with flies. Lucy crouched lower onto the saddle. "Now! Bite him!" she cried.

Arrow clung to the giant's leg and slashed his beak through the back of the giant's knee. The giant howled in fury and swung the ax again, but a pair of griffins latched onto his arm and grappled with it until he could find no room to maneuver. He stomped forward, closer to Cair's main gate. His boot smashed into a brace of Narnian soldiers, and they pitched backward like a scatter of pebbles.

"The other leg, the other leg! Get him down!" Lucy shouted.

Arrow launched away to the giant's other knee. Lucy and the griffin swayed crazily as he landed. Arrow sank his beak into the other knee.

The giant wrenched his off hand away from another griffin and swung a fist at them. _Slam._ With a grunt that stole her breath, Lucy toppled from Arrow's back. The griffin fell away with a shriek, only to come back and clamp his beak to the giant's wrist and dangle like jewelry.

The enormous hand caught Lucy and closed around her, forcing any remaining air from her lungs in a squeeze that shot pain through her ribs. With stars bursting in her vision, she saw the giant rip his weapon arm free of the other griffins and poise the enormous ax over her.

Arrow lost his grip and fell away. Straining to breathe, Lucy looked up at the gleaming steel of the ax as the giant prepared to slice it at her like a man whittling a stick.

\- # -

Van saw the ax as Maddoken lunged around after a trio of minotaurs. "Lucy!" He hauled back on the dragon's yoke.

Maddoken protested with an angry hiss.

Van jerked the yoke again. _"Lucy!"_

The dragon fixed a fury-bright eye on him. Van started to stand, though Underland knew how he'd save her. His every nerve was trained on the hovering ax.

Maddoken saw where he was looking and rumbled, long and loud. "You're lucky I like you, sssssnack." With a flap of his enormous wings, he leaped into the air. The force of the lift shoved Van down onto his back again.

Van snarled, very like a dragon, himself. Maddoken smashed into the giant's nose, claws first, and blasted him with a fireball.

Blinded by smoke and choked by the smell of singed hair, Van hardly had time to duck. The giant roared and swung the ax at them instead. The blade slipped, and its flat slammed into them, knocking Maddoken away. Van reeled, screaming as the dragon's tail slapped his injured knee, and then there was nothing but air around him and beneath him.

The giant, still fighting griffins, staggered and crashed down, and the ground rushed up at Van. _This is it,_ he thought. But he spotted Lucy tumbling free of the giant's fist, and he felt not one instant of regret.

"Ah-ah," Maddoken said, snatching him up in one claw. "I've got harpiesssss to eat."

With an outward gasp of relief, Van climbed back aboard. Below, Lucy was getting to her feet. Already, Arrow had found her. Van shook his head as they winged skyward again. "You are one for a good save, Madd. I might be starting to like you, myself."


	36. Adam's Flesh And Adam's Bone

Peter and Oreius fought side by side, as they done through countless battles. The big centaur was older now, going grey, but no less the warrior than he had been all of Peter's reign. Oreius was the sum of the fierce pride in Narnia that was in the heart of every one of its soldiers.

For all that, Peter doubted they could hold back the tide of the Witch's army any longer. And he knew it for certain when he saw four giants tearing a path through the northwestern forest on their way to the castle.

It was time to use the book.

"I'll get one of 'em, least," bellowed a voice overhead.

Peter looked behind him to find Humrubble, a good giant who had defected from Ettinsmoor years ago. The giant stomped toward the forest, swinging a club.

"No!" Peter shouted. "I have a plan. Lift me up."

"Eh?" Humrubble scooped Peter into his palm and swooped him upward.

Peter ignored the dizzying whoosh as the giant brought him close to his ear. "There is a crate bearing a red mark in a wagon on our right flank. Bring it into their midst, Sir Giant, and open it, but do _not_ look inside. When they've taken interest-and they will-you're to back away, and keep our troops from nearing it. Can you do that for me?"

"Sure, Yer Majesty. What's in it?"

"Our last resort," Peter said grimly.

Humrubble nodded, then set Peter down once more.

The next several minutes provided no opportunity to see how his plan was working, for then Peter was in a fight for his very life. Another wave of the Witch's foot soldiers had surrounded them. All he knew was _swing-lunge-duck_ , and the stitch in his side grew worse and worse until he was nearly doubled over with the pain of it.

"We must retreat, Your Majesty," Oreius said. "Into the northern forests, if we can make it. The castle is lost, and their numbers are too great to manage a stand here. I will carry you."

 _Susan,_ he thought at once. _Cori. Aidan._ Despair sickened him. He couldn't leave them, not knowing if they were alive. How could he leave them? He scanned his weary, battling troops. How could he stay, and risk even greater loss?

"No one carries the King but me!" said a thunderous voice. Onyx plowed into a Black Dwarf closing in on their flank. He speared an orc with his horn, then knelt quickly at Peter's side. Peter swung onto the unicorn's back, and immediately the enemy began rushing at them again.

But with the greater height came a view of Peter's first hope. The draw of the Witch's golden book was working. The enemy giants had broken away from the fight to close in around the crate, and begun fighting one another instead. More and more of the Witch's soldiers joined them. Even as he watched, one of the giants fell, and did not move again.

True to his orders, Humrubble kept the Narnians back from the fray. "Thank you, Aslan," Peter whispered.

"Go!" Oreius shouted.

Onyx bolted, and Peter took advantage of their enemies' distraction with the book to shout, "Fall back to the forest!" With any luck, some of the dryads would still be awake. "Oreius, lead them!"

The centaur galloped toward the trees, crying the retreat. Peter and Onyx made to follow.

"Not leaving yet, are you?" came a cold voice behind them.

Onyx pivoted on his heel, and Peter found himself facing the White Witch. Her pale face and dress, paler than the snow around her, stood out against the grey and black smoke billowing from the castle.

She smiled. "I've just begun my victory celebration, Peter. Don't you want to join me?"

\- # -

 _We've lost her,_ Asha thought, scanning the mob at the pier. They were holding back the remnants of the Calormenes with little trouble, but that wasn't what concerned her.

The White Witch had vanished, which could only mean she was headed for Cair.

Changing into a cloud of birch leaves, Asha rose into the air. She couldn't find the Witch anywhere her senses reached, but when she realized the scale of the battle on and around the castle, her heart sank. The Witch's forces were winning. When she finished crushing Narnia, her cold fist would squeeze the life out of Selbaran, too.

 _Aslan, Great Lion,_ she begged silently, _how do I stop her?_

Warmth fluttered past her. Asha landed on the pier and changed into her human form again. Meleyen, a Narnian dryad, held out Asha's bow to her. Asha took it, but all her attention was on the breeze flowing in from the sea.

That smell.

Cherry blossoms.

With a glad cry, she ran toward the end of the pier.

Mist gathered out at sea, the sort of mist that formed when cold winter air met the warmth of spring. And out of the mist came a ship. And another. And another. More and more, until the bay was filled with ships of every shape and color. All of the ships taken by _The Phoenix_ and brought whole to the Faeries' Gate. Overhead flew the Faelings themselves.

And in the bow of the very first ship was Aslan.

When he landed, the Selbarani cheered. Their roar so frightened the Calormenes that they surrendered at once.

"Well met, daughter of the forest," Aslan said when Asha knelt before him. Behind him, the first of the ships was making its landing. Others, still in the bay, had begun lowering longboats.

"Your return is gladly welcomed, Aslan," Asha said, her heart full of joy for the Lion's arrival, and fear that they might be too late to aid the soldiers at Cair.

Aslan seemed to know this, and gave her a warm, wise nod. "Let us go to the battle, forest child, and finish it."

\- # -

Edmund and Barton raced alongside Leina through the chaos of the battlefield. The ground had turned to a treacherous soup of slush and mud and Ed didn't want to think what else. Ahead, he saw Peter and Onyx the unicorn fighting the White Witch for all they were worth. The Witch caught Onyx a lucky blow, and the unicorn toppled. Peter rolled off Onyx's back and onto his feet.

Even as Barton galloped on, Edmund remained glued to that scene. _You're overreaching!_ he thought, willing his brother to hear his him. _Watch for the wand!_ The Witch kept Peter on the move, pressing him with her sword on one side, and her new wand on the other. Ed saw Peter was injured by the way he carried himself. Every thrust of the Witch's sword came closer to Peter's body. She seemed to be taunting him with the wand, saving her worst blow for last.

And then, with a flash of gleaming steel, she struck Peter's sword arm. Even from his distance, Ed heard the cry of pain. Rhindon dropped from Peter's fist, and the Witch used Peter's distraction to sweep his feet. As Peter went down clutching his arm, Edmund's heart shot into his throat.

Enemy soldiers sprang into their path. Leina took care of them so quickly that Barton hardly had to break stride.

The Witch loomed over Peter's prone form with a terrifying, wild leer and victory in her eyes. She raised her wand and prepared to strike. Barton closed in. All Ed could hear now was the stride of hoofbeats and the scrape of his own breath.

And then they were there. With a feral roar of his own, he leaped from Barton's back and over Peter's body. He smashed into the Witch and they both reeled backward. Gripping his sword and the ice wand, Edmund struck, hardly noting the shock in Jadis's eyes as she regained her balance. Again. Again. Again. Every time she went for Peter, Edmund drove her back with striking sword and slashing wand. Feet and hands and pounding heartbeat fused into the dance with death that he'd been expecting for twenty years.

"My wand," she hissed.

"No longer, Jadis," he said. Every fear he'd ever had of her was gone, a slate wiped clean. In its place was cool expectation. Not even death scared him now, because on the other side of that waited Aslan's Country. She could take nothing from him anymore.

She lunged with her new wand. Almost without thought, he raised the ice wand. It absorbed the bright flash and shuddered in his hand. He windmilled his sword, and as the blade came down, he sprang toward her.

Her sword clashed against his and screeched along the blade. Her elbow caught him across the mouth, and he tasted blood. Instead of leaning into her, he dodged backward.

The Witch stumbled, off balance. Edmund arced his blade in the other direction and slashed it along her arm.

True surprise washed across her features. She glanced at Peter, still twisting with agony on the ground, then touched her wand hand to her forearm and came away with blood. "An eye for an eye, Edmund?"

"I'd offer you surrender," he said, "but I know you'll never take it."

And they were on each other again, strike and dodge and twist and crash. The soldiers fighting around them blurred into nothing. Ed lurched forward with the ice wand, but she was just a second too fast and missed the stab by a breath. She fired a spell at him again. He dove out of the way and felt the heat of the blast flutter his ponytail.

"I rather miss the boy who cowered in his shoes before me, now I think on it," she taunted.

"You'll never meet him again," Ed shot back.

"Pity. I wonder then, if I might find new leverage to subdue him." She drew herself up to her full height, and her eyes blazed with mad fury. She sprang at him with her sword, _smash-smash-smash_ , but as he was readying himself for another blow, she turned aside and pointed her wand at Peter. The tip glowed.

Edmund didn't even have to think. With a scream, he pounced in front of Peter's body, raised the ice wand, and the word flashed through his brain without effort: _Strike!_

The ice wand flashed. A streak of blue light shot from the end and engulfed the White Witch. Thunder boomed from the grey skies.

Shaking, gasping, Edmund stood his ground in front of his brother's body. Blinking to clear the blinding glare from his eyes, he wiped a trickle of blood from his lips with the back of his hand.

The glare cleared enough to reveal the Witch, still poised to attack. Edmund tensed to strike again ... but there was no need.

The Witch loomed over them, her face drawn in a hateful snarl, her wand poised ...

... frozen forever in stone.


	37. The Age Of Light

The sound of horns filled the air until it shook. Edmund turned to look behind him and found thousands of warriors pouring onto the battlefield. The tide of them overran the Witch's soldiers—onto the plain, into the castle, up toward the forests. At the head of the tide raced Nalis, Darius, and a cloud of birch leaves that could only be Asha. Beside them ran Aslan.

Ed let out the breath he'd been holding. A wave of soldiers poured past him on either side.

Aslan came to a stop beside him. They looked at each other for a long moment, then the Lion gave him a solemn nod of approval.

Ed's heart warmed through. He nodded back, then held up the ice wand. He spun his sword in his other hand and brought it down on the wand. The ice wand shattered into glittering pieces that melted into the trampled snow.

Aslan turned to the battlefield and gave a great roar. The sound echoed over the plain. In its wake, the snow melted, farther and farther away until it dissolved from the plain, the western fields, the northern forests, and beyond. Everywhere, a curtain of green replaced the greys and whites of winter. Woody canes sprouted around the statue of the Witch and spiraled upward, thicker and thicker. Dozens of white roses bloomed along the canes, which grew and closed in, practically a tree, until the Witch was no longer visible.

A whirl of birch leaves surrounded Edmund. He grinned as Asha returned to her human shape and threw her arms around his neck. "You did it, you did it!"

"Edmund!" came Lucy's shout. She and Arrow landed, and Lucy raced toward them.

" _Lucy,"_ choked Peter.

Asha stepped away from him, and Edmund knelt beside Peter, who was staring at Lucy as if seeing a ghost. "Quick, he's hurt," said Edmund.

Lucy tossed her cordial bottle. Ed caught it and uncorked it to give Peter of drop of the cordial. The pain in Peter's face dissolved. He rubbed at his arm, and his stunned gaze came back to Edmund.

Ed held out his hand. "I never left you, brother. Not for an instant."

Peter took Ed's hand, and Ed helped him to his feet. Lucy slammed against them both in a crushing hug.

Peter's eyes filled with wondering tears. His gaze went to Edmund, then Asha, then Aslan, and back to Lucy again. "You're alive. You're _alive_ ," he gasped, hugging her until Edmund thought Lucy would suffocate.

"Of course she's _alive_ ," Edmund said in a tone of mock insult. "She's been with me."

Peter grinned at him over Lucy's shoulder. Then his smile froze again as the sound of flapping filled the air.

Van landed before them on Maddoken. The dragon folded his wings as Van jumped to the ground. "Ssssstuffed. Couldn't eat another bite," the dragon said. His tongue flicked out over his teeth.

"Ed ... ?" Peter began.

Ed exchanged a look with Van, who looked cautiously back at the dragon.

Maddoken eyed Peter, obviously marking him a king by Peter's armor. The dragon sneered. "Eh. Royalty tassssstesssss terrible, anyway."

Ed started to draw a sigh of relief, then choked on it as he saw Van doing the same thing. He and Van exchanged a rueful, watchful look.

Clearly, the only safe dragon was a full dragon.

\- # -

Cheering replaced the sound of horns. The Witch's army had surrendered in the face of Aslan's charge, and Lucy's ears rang with all the noise. Other griffins landed around them, giving the dragon wary looks, but relaxing when no one (especially Arrow) seemed concerned. Lucy smiled at Arrow, who gave her a very Griffish look of dignified happiness, and nudged her toward Aslan.

She rushed forward and wrapped her arms around him, inhaling his summery scent. Aslan laughed and nuzzled her cheek. "Dear, brave Lucy."

"Thank you, Aslan," she murmured.

"Thank _you_ , dear one," said the Lion. He stepped back, still smiling that Lion's smile.

"Peter!"

All of them turned to find Cori running toward them, still in her battle armor. Peter gave a whooshing breath and opened his arms. Cori smashed into him in a hug that knocked him back three steps. "The children are all right. They are with Susan and Amelan."

"Children?" Peter echoed.

Cori nodded, beaming. "Susan has had a daughter. You should see her, Peter. She is so beautiful."

After that, there was so much laughter and cheering and dancing around that Lucy could hardly contain herself. Barton and Onyx joined them, snorting and shaking their manes.

Salvia landed on the ground before Peter. He bowed, both to Peter and to Aslan. "Humrubble has sealed the crate, sire. The remaining harpies have fled to Ettinsmoor."

"Thank you, Salvia. I will arrange for the crate to be—"

"I will dispose of it, Peter, where no one will find it," said Aslan. He nodded. "You have done well."

Peter gave Aslan a self-conscious, crooked grin that he rarely showed to anyone else.

When things settled, Aslan turned to Edmund with the hint of humor on his features. "You have labored long and hard in my service, Edmund. I think it is time you took a seat."

With a grin, Edmund started back toward the castle. The rest followed eagerly.

\- # -

Van trailed behind Lucy and the others as they entered the castle through the damaged gates. They twisted and turned down hallways, and came finally to a soaring room of marble. The ceiling must once have been glass, and the wall behind the dais bearing four thrones, too—but these had been shattered, and through them, he could now see the red-and-gold colors of sunset. Already, the fallen glass had been cleared away, and a crowd of onlookers watched eagerly as the party entered the hall.

Lucy and Edmund strode confidently down the main aisle between huge marble columns. Behind came Asha, the woman in armor, High King Peter, and Aslan, whom Van could barely look at without staring. Lions were not unfamiliar to him—he'd seen some in Calormen—but never like _this_ one.

In one of the thrones sat a woman, breathtaking in spite of the weariness on her face. Beside her floated—Van blinked in disbelief—a Jinn holding an infant. Maddoken landed outside, in the open space where the glass behind the thrones had been, and peered in with obvious curiosity (but, thankfully, no apparent intention of eating anyone).

"Edmund! Lucy!" shouted the seated woman. She started to rise from her seat.

"Sit, sister," Edmund said with a grin. He came toward her and took her hands. His grin passed from Susan to Saris and back. "Congratulations."

"Welcome home," the woman said. Her face fell. "Edmund, I am so sorry."

Edmund leaned forward and kissed her cheek. "You have nothing to be sorry for. _I_ am the sorry one." He looked to the Jinn. "I was wrong."

 _Wrong about what?_ Van wondered, feeling like he was missing half the story of the man under whom he'd sailed for over a year.

There were more hugs and kisses and tearful greetings, and a lot of fussing over the baby, whom Van assumed was the new arrival. And when the Kings and Queens sat on their thrones at last, Van had to cover his ears for the thundering cheer. Edmund grinned at him. A dryad came forward towing a toddling blond boy. Peter scooped him up at once, and the child squealed in delight.

Van's gaze found Lucy. She was seated at her throne, and beside her stood a beaming, white-bearded faun. She was speaking to the Fae king. Behind the Fae king was a long, _long_ string of people and animals and Underland knew what else, waiting to talk to her. And still, the noise—one long, joyful rumble that somehow left him out.

He stared at Lucy and found it difficult to breathe. So fearless. So beautiful. So completely out of his reach.

Van edged backward to the wall and slipped around the edge of the dais. He saw no one looking as he reached Maddoken through the shattered window. "Time to go."

"Go where?" the dragon asked.

Van climbed onto the dragon's back. "Anywhere."

As he turned around for one last look, Van saw Aslan—only Aslan—watching him. The Lion's golden eyes blinked once, and Van somehow got the feeling that he had a choice yet to make.


	38. Path Of Stars

Lucy could not find Van all night, and toward the end, Aslan disappeared too. As soon as the crowd attending her was distracted, she hurried outside and made her way down to the shore. This part of the beach was all sand and surf, where it seemed ages ago, she had played tag with Cori, Susan, and Asha as her brothers looked on.

Aslan was there, waiting for her. She ran to him and hugged him hard. "You're leaving, aren't you?" she asked softly.

"Yes," he murmured. "Narnia is secure. You and your brothers and sister have formed alliances that will protect it for hundreds of years to come. The nobles of Telmar. The dryads of the east. The Jinn of Calormen. Someday they will find themselves free, and Saris will help lead them to it. And you have ties to Ettinsmoor and the Lone Islands now." He gave her a long, gentle look. "There are other worlds to put right, Lucy. I must leave Narnia in your care."

Lucy's breath hitched, and she fought back tears. "Will you come back?"

He made a regretful noise. "It will be a long, long time, dear one. But I promise you, you will see me again in my own Country."

Unable to stop the tears now, Lucy buried her face in Aslan's mane. "I'll miss you."

"You cannot truly miss what is never gone from your heart, Lucy. Nor can I miss what is never gone from mine." Aslan gave her an affectionate Lion's kiss, then turned away to raise his face to the star-strewn sky.

Brighter and brighter the stars became. One by one, they rained like streaks of light onto the ocean's surface, where they stretched out into a shining road that ran all the way to the horizon.

Far off, Lucy saw a breathless brightness. Open-mouthed with wonder, she stared until her heart pounded and her eyes watered. And she swore she could smell flowers and hear the sound of waterfalls.

"Lucy?" came a voice behind her.

Vandelar.

She turned around to find Van standing a few steps away. He stared over her shoulder with a strange, awed look on his face.

"I thought you left," she said.

"I was going to." He came forward and took her hands. "I'm not nobility, Lucy. Not really. You deserve kings."

She gave him a mock scowl. "I'll decide what I deserve, Vandelar et cetera, et cetera, M'Haven," she scolded, "and not you, nor my blustering-rooster brothers are going to decide it for me." Smiling now, she added, "And as for what I _want_ ... this will do just fine." She leaned forward and kissed him.

Van stroked her hair and slipped his arms around her with an answering smile. "Who am I to dispute you, m'leddy?" When he looked back over her shoulder again, Lucy followed his gaze.

A lump formed in her throat. Aslan was gone, and the stars had returned to their places in the sky.

\- # -

Helen Pevensie wiped her forehead as she walked up the stairs of Digory Kirke's old country mansion. He needed them, he'd said, and so she, Michael, and the children had moved in with him. The old house now rang with happy shouts and running feet, which might have given Mrs. Macready fits, but the Professor seemed so glad to have them all together in his house that even the cantankerous housekeeper relented ... as long as the children played _outside_ after their tutoring lessons, and not under her feet.

Helen never talked with the children about the strange appearance of their adult selves during her frightful experience with the Germans. She wasn't sure if the children even suspected it, or if they were supposed to. But something in their demeanor seemed to change, and even if they never talked of Narnia or Kings and Queens—or Aslan—it was if she and Michael and the Professor and the children all shared that wonderful secret.

And so here she was, needed neither for cooking nor cleaning. For once in her life, she had leisure time. And when it was quiet, when the Professor and Michael were in the study and the children were outside, and Mrs. Macready was cooking in the kitchen, Helen explored the big house.

Upstairs, in a spare room on the top floor of the house, stood a carved wardrobe. Here, her children had started their amazing journey toward lives wholly separate from the ones they led in England. She touched the carved tree in the center panel, and then one of the carved lion faces at the top. Cautiously, she opened the wardrobe door.

The only things that greeted her were fur coats, a few empty hangers, and the faint scent of mothballs. Then she noticed a paper tucked into a crevice on the back of the door. Curious, she unfolded it. The writing was not the still-childlike scrawl of her eldest, but somehow she knew the body of it was from Peter. The signatures were each unique: bold, or elegant, or artful, or playful, according to their bearers.

 _Dear Mum and Dad,_

 _Please don't worry for us. We know eventually you'll come looking in here for us—but we're already with you. One of Aslan's greatest gifts is that no matter how long we are in that Other Place, time doesn't alter here, and we're never gone from you. We love you—There, and here, and always._

 _Love,_

 _Peter_

 _Susan_

 _Edmund_

 _Lucy_

Helen folded the letter, teary-eyed, and placed it in the pocket of her shirt.

How blessed she was. She had four wonderful children ... and already, she knew they would grow into incredible men and women. Wiping the tears from her cheeks, she shut the wardrobe door. Then she walked to the door of the spare room.

She paused at the threshold to glance back at the carved wardrobe. She studied one of the lion-head carvings, and smiled. "Thank you, Aslan," she whispered. "I hope someday to see the country you've shown them for myself." Very quietly, she shut the door.

~ The End ~

 _A/N: It's over! I can hardly believe it's over! A huge, enormous, very affectionate THANK YOU to everyone who has followed the "Blades of Narnia" series over the almost three years I wrote it. Special thanks to the awesome community at Narnia Fan Fiction Revolution, to whom I dedicate these stories. It's been a pleasure to share this series with all of you, and I hope you've enjoyed following me along with this adventure. Thanks again ... and Long Live Aslan!_


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